The Dilemma of a God Too Great: Strange Things Happen When God is Overly Exalted

The Dilemma of a God Too Great: Strange Things Happen When God is Overly Exalted When God is made transcendent to the extreme, He recedes from everyday touch, and the distance from believers widens. To bridge this distance, the Religions of the Book have layered "bridges" of covenants and laws, prayers and liturgies, communities and customs. In contrast, in Japan, gods (kami) are perceived as "dwelling" in places, things, and actions, and this tangibility itself became the mechanism for sustaining faith. The difference between the two is not one of good or evil, but a "difference in distance" designed by historical and geopolitical conditions. The God of the Bible is Transcendent; the Gods of Japan are Immanent "The greater the god, the better." One would normally think so. And perhaps that is the case, but the good may come as a package deal with the bad. It is a relationship of opportunity cost or trade-offs, as they say in economics. For a simple contrast, let's consider the gods of Japan. The Japanese gods are incredibly close and personal. It's not that one specific deity is close, but rather that the culture readily accepts the human act of feeling a god's presence or sensing divinity and sanctity in something. In fact, doing so can even be seen as a sign of piety. The culture is not only accepting but actively positive about imbuing things with heart (kokoro), soul, and feeling for gods, Buddhas, or something else. There is a theory that the Japanese are atheists, but while it may have diminished recently, it is rare to find a country so overflowing with things that could be considered religious—shrines, temples, small wayside altars, household altars, Jizō statues, and so on. Even today, Japan may rank high in the world in this regard. And the human heart itself values faith. While it is often unclear what that faith is directed towards, it is a national characteristic to cherish the feelings and sensibilities of faith. However, there is also a very strong tradition of saying "NO" to fanaticism or the imposition of any single religion that makes one lose perspective. The fact that the Japanese are devout and the fact that they reject the absolutization of any one religion may be two sides of the same coin. The God of the Bible In contrast to Japanese religion, let's consider the God of the Bible. Religions that hold the Bible as their sacred text are called the Religions of the Book. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are well-known examples; they are a group of religions that connect with God through scripture. These religions, though with varying degrees of intensity, exalt God to the extreme. In these religions, there is only one deity. He is the absolute and transcendent God. There is a passage in the Bible that says, "to see Him is to die." In fact, across the entire Old Testament (I will exclude the New Testament for this discussion), I believe only two to four people have ever directly seen or met God. The New Testament is excluded because the position of Jesus makes it complicated; if Jesus is God, then the characters in the Bible met God constantly. This is fine for Christianity, but for Judaism and Islam, while the New Testament is a valuable document, it is not their sacred text, and they do not hold the view that Jesus is God or the Son of God. Therefore, to take a general overview of the Biblical religions, the New Testament is excluded. The Biblical religions exalt God to the max. The degree of transcendence and absoluteness, from the perspective of a people as faithlessly impious as the Japanese, is so extreme that it seems impossible to elevate Him any further. Seeing this, a Japanese person might have several questions. It's human nature to want to praise one's favorite. Why did we Japanese not exalt our gods to such an extent? Or, why did the Biblical religions exalt their God to the absolute limit? The latter may seem natural, but since many religions do not elevate their objects of faith to such a degree, it can be a point of inquiry. Why Did the Japanese Not Exalt Their Objects of Faith So Much? Why did the Japanese not elevate their objects of faith as much as the Biblical cultural sphere? While there are Buddhist sects like Jōdo Shinshū that highly exalt Amida Buddha, it doesn't seem to be to the same extent. There are likely many reasons for this, and each may form part of the answer. But to put it simply, it's possible that the Japanese did not need to elevate their objects of faith that much. Furthermore, the very idea of elevating an object of faith to such a degree may not have occurred to them. Why Did the Biblical Cultural Sphere Exalt God to the Extreme? In the Biblical cultural sphere, again with variations, immense effort is poured into how to elevate God. There are likely many reasons for this as well, and each may have its own merit. But let's consider it in comparison to why the Japanese did not do so. The Biblical Cultural Sphere Needed to Exalt God Reading the Bible, especially the first half, reveals something of a battle between the common people who wanted to worship foreign gods and the conservative monotheists. From the Sinai Covenant to the Babylonian Exile, a large part of the history is a religious struggle—how the conservative faction tried to bring back the majority of the people who had little interest in their own religion and were attracted to others. Palestine-Israel is geographically a crossroads of civilizations and peoples. The Kingdom of Judah was not inhabited by Jews alone. It was also influenced by various surrounding advanced cultures. As a geographic and geopolitical nexus, it was natural for various things to flow in, for trade to be active, and for Jews themselves to leave their homeland to do business in various regions. It would be strange to think they were not influenced by other countries and cultures in terms of religion, language, culture, artifacts, and immigration. The ancient Kingdom of Judah, despite its ups and downs, was a minor power for much of its history. It was inevitably influenced by powerful surrounding nations and peoples such as Egypt, the Orient, the seafaring Phoenicians, the Greeks, and the Romans. In a sense, it would have been difficult not to be influenced by other religions. In such an environment, religions must compete. It's a competition of how great one's own religion is, and a competition to win believers. While the Jewish religion is an ethnic one, when documents are created, the subjectivity and intentions of the creators are embedded. Furthermore, it's doubtful whether the Jewish people of that time had a modern sense of ethnicity. To survive religious competition and win back believers, it was necessary to elevate their own religion and God. Let's compare the fact that the Japanese had no concept of elevating their own religion with the situation of ancient Judaism. Elevating or making an object of faith transcendent has its good sides, but it's conceivable that undesirable things can happen. For example, the distance between God and the believer widens. If "to see Him is to die," then you cannot see Him. Uttering His name carelessly is forbidden, and in fact, the pronunciation of the Jewish God's name was forgotten. Idolatry is also forbidden. Many people might think, "What's wrong with simply not making pictures or statues?" But to make a statue of the great God is presumptuous. To think that God can be represented by a form is also presumptuous. God is the Creator, and all other things are His creations; for a mere creation to represent God is the height of presumption. Furthermore, making pictures or statues can lead to emotional projection, and a faith in the object itself may arise. To represent God with a creation is already disrespectful, but to project emotions onto it and treat a mere object as if it were God is even more presumptuous. The Biblical religions, with variations, dislike and forbid feeling God in things. They are constantly on guard against not only feeling divinity or sanctity in things, but also against imbuing objects with human passions—heart, soul, passion, or whatever else. Such things are not only disrespectful to the God of the Bible but could also be a breeding ground for polytheism. History suggests that while God is supposed to be one, it is human nature to create several gods or objects of faith. If God is Absolute, Transcendent, and Extreme, the Distance to Man is Infinite Exalting God has its good sides, but let's look at the demerits. The more transcendent God becomes, the greater the distance from humanity. If the distance becomes too great, there is a danger that He becomes effectively non-existent. There is a possibility of hollowing out. It's not like a battle manga, but like Dragon Ball, it was often the case that if it wasn't successful, it became uninteresting, the readers lost interest, and the series was cancelled. That might still be the case today. To prevent this hollowing out and to connect God and man, the Biblical religions have devised dozens of ways to strengthen their religious power, with commonalities and differences among them. However, effective measures vary with the times and regions, and what was effective in one era or place could be a negative in another. Perhaps this is related to why Biblical religions have not spread widely in Japan. What Concretely Happens When God is Elevated? The basis of Biblical religions is the covenant. This is true for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. For example, Christianity may seem very lenient with its covenants, but it adheres to what must be adhered to. In Christianity, the New Testament removed dietary restrictions, so unlike Jews and Muslims, they can eat anything—but they do so in accordance with the Bible. Thus, observing the covenant and the Law is the basis of being a believer. Beyond that, there are many other customs, rites, rituals, commentaries, and non-Biblical texts. For Judaism, the Mishnah, and for Islam, the Quran and Hadith, influence the lives and faith of believers. Even if not adopted into the Bible, many documents from that time exist. In such a context, praying several times a day becomes a habit, and there is the Sabbath. However, to maintain monotheism and the transcendence of God, as times, regions, and cultures change, what was once necessary for religion can sometimes have strange effects or even become the foundation for anti-religious sentiment. The Modern Era God created the world, humanity, and the universe. On the final day, He will resurrect the dead and judge whether they properly kept the covenant during their lives. These are clear roles, but how God interacts with us in our daily lives is subtle. Research shows that in times of trouble, East and West, people tend to pray to God. However, the God of the Bible does not necessarily help suffering people easily, and there are passages in the Bible that warn against using God in such a way. If you can't rely on Him when you're in trouble, that's a minus point for believers. There is also deism, the idea that God created the world and its laws, and now the world just runs according to that system. This gives rise to the idea that as long as the system exists, it doesn't really matter whether God is there or not. This is likely related to the formation of the modern West. Modern sociology, whether Weber or Sombart, is systemic in its thinking. It also rejects magical or superstitious thinking. In economics, classical economics developed in the direction of seeing things as things, without imbuing them with emotion. This is materialistic, and it's true for both liberalism and Marxism. Whether Calvin, Leibniz, or Laplace's demon, the worldview is pre-established or deterministic. It's a worldview where an individual, no matter what they do, cannot connect with God. From the Beginning, Contact Between God and Man Was Tenuous Sometimes, one can feel God through mystical or transcendent experiences. Ayrton Senna reportedly felt God during a race. There is an astronaut who felt God and later became a clergyman. The famous mountaineer Reinhold Messner reportedly felt God in a critical situation during a climb. I heard that a free diver, during a time when records of over 100m were being contested, felt something like God. The dolphin researcher John C. Lilly reportedly observed transcendent experiences when he placed people in a sensory deprivation state and administered hallucinogens like LSD. Timothy Leary, a former Harvard professor and father of the psychedelic and hippie cultures, aimed to have mystical experiences through psychoactive drugs. These are all experiences of God in special situations. They are not ways to feel God in daily life. It's well-known that new religions and cults use special training to induce non-ordinary experiences. Orthodox religions also sometimes use progressivism, ecstatic states, or certain substances (like cannabis) to feel God. Islamic mysticism is famous. In Christianity, Gnosticism was once popular. The ultra-Orthodox Jews of today, who are ultra-right-wing or ultra-conservative (not to be confused with another group of ultra-conservative Jews), were a new sect born around Ukraine in the early modern period, considered cult-like at the time, who held gatherings where they would sing and dance into ecstatic states, and were looked upon strangely by other ordinary Jews of the time. Europe seems strong in the Bible and Christianity, but depending on how you look at it, it has a history of only a few thousand years. There were powers like the Grand Duchy of Lithuania that resisted Christianization even in the Middle Ages. And in the late Middle Ages, the Renaissance began, and by the early second millennium, Christianity was shaken, and in the modern era, it's quite shaky. A thousand years is both a long and a short time. In regions where various peoples, religions, trade, and cultures gathered, history is a jumble. Japan, all things considered, was peaceful. In fact, Japan was incredibly peaceful. War can advance civilization, but it also makes the world more complicated. Peaceful times allow for maturation. It's a gentle, sweet world where you can do what you like without rushing. You can often get by without doing anything too edgy or radical. The Environments of the Biblical Cultural Sphere and Japan Were Completely Different The Biblical religions are a group of religions that were born and maintained in a very messy environment. Japan is an island nation with a history of being able to view the continent as someone else's problem for long periods. It would be strange if, with everything being so different, they ended up with similar religions. There are good reasons why the Biblical religions became exclusively monotheistic, and that may have, in turn, become the matrix for modern secularism, deism, atheism, and agnosticism. It may have been useful for creating a materialistic society, economy, science, technology, and industry. Conversely, the reason Japan did not create such things may be that the relationship between gods and people was too close, and they have always had a close, not distant, relationship. I think this tendency still exists today. This sense of dissonance may be one of the reasons why the Biblical world and Japan are compared as completely different cultural spheres.

偉すぎる神様のジレンマ、神様が偉すぎると変なことが生じる

偉すぎる神様のジレンマ、神様が偉すぎると変なことが生じる 神を極限まで超越化すれば、日常の手触りから後退し、信者との距離は開く。その距離を埋めるために、啓典宗教は契約と律法、祈りと典礼、共同体と習俗という“橋”を重ねてきた。対して日本では、神は場所や物や行いに“宿る”ものとして感受され、可感性が信仰の維持装置になった。両者の差は善悪ではなく、歴史的・地政学的条件が設計した「距離のちがい」である。 ・聖書の神様は超越神で日本の神様は身近 　神様はえらいに越したことはありません。 　と普通は思うでしょう。 　多分そうなのでしょうがよいことの裏側には悪いこともセットで着いてくるかもしれません。 　経済学でいう機械費用やトレードオフの関係です。 　簡単なところで対照（コントロール）にもなるので日本の神様を考えてみましょう。 　日本の神様はめちゃめち身近です。 　ある特定の神様が身近というわけではなく人間が神様を感じたり何かに神性や聖性を感じたりすることを素直に受け入れます。 　むしろそうであった方が信心深さと見なされたりさえもすることもあります。 　神性や聖性だけでなく物事に心を籠めたり魂を込めたり神を感じたり仏を感じたりその他何かを感じたりすることに肯定的でむしろ積極的です。 　日本人は無神論という説がありますが最近はだいぶ減りましたが日本ほど神社や仏閣や祠や神棚やお地蔵さまやとうしんこうその他宗教的と思えるものが国中あふれかえっていた国も珍しかったかもしれませんし今でも世界の上位の方かもしれません。 　そして人の心も信心を貴びます。 　何に対して信心を感じているのかよく分からないことも多いですが気持ちや感性に信仰心を大切にする国民性です。 　ただし狂信的だったり前後を見失って何かの宗教を押し付けられる場合にはNOをいう伝統が非常に根強くあります。 　日本人が信心深いこととある宗教を絶対化することを拒絶することは何か同じものの別の側面なのかもしれません。 ・聖書の神様 　日本の宗教に対して聖書の神様を考えてみましょう。 　聖書を聖典とする宗教は啓典宗教といいます。 　キリスト教、ユダヤ教、イスラム教などが知られており、啓典というと聖書を通じて神様とつながる宗教群です。 　これらの宗教は温度差はあれ神様を上げまくります。 　これらの宗教では神様は１柱（1人？）しかいません。 　それは絶対神で超越神です。 　「見たら死ぬ」という記述が聖書にあったはずです。 　実際に聖書の中で神様に直接神様を見るか会ったことがある人は聖書全体で2～4人くらいしかいなかったと思います。 　ただし聖書と言ってもキリスト教でいう旧約聖書を指すことにして新約聖書は除くものとします。 　新約聖書はイエスの位置づけが難しいので省くこととします。 　これはイエスを神とするなら聖書の登場人物はイエスという神と会いまくっていることになってしまうからです。 　そもそもキリスト教にとってはそれでいいでしょうがユダヤ教やイスラム教徒にとっては新約聖書は貴重な文献ではあっても聖典というかイエスと神だか神の子だかとする見解はとっていませんので聖書系宗教を全般的に俯瞰するために新約聖書は除きます。 　そもそも聖書系宗教では神を上げまくっています。 　超越度と絶対度が日本人のような無不信心？な民族というか不届き？な民族からすると神をめちゃめちゃ上げていてもう上げることがこれ以上不可能なくらい上げています。 　そういう様子を見ると日本人としてはいくつか疑問がわくでしょう。 そもそも自分の推しはあげたくなるのが人情です。 なぜ我々日本人は神様を聖書系宗教のように上げまくらなかったのでしょうか？ あるいはなぜ聖書系宗教は神様を極限まで上げたのでしょうか？ 後者は当然のように見えますが別に神様やら自分たちの信仰対象をそこまで上げてない宗教も多いのである種の疑問点や問題提起となりえます。 ・なぜ日本人は自分たちの信仰対象をそこまで上げなかったのか？ 　根是日本人は聖書文化圏のように自分たちの信仰対象をそんなに上げなかったのでしょうか？ 　浄土真宗の様に阿弥陀様を上げまくった仏教周波などはありますが聖書文化圏ほどではなさそうです。 　これにはいろいろ理由があるでしょうし、いろんな意見があってよくそれぞれが答えの一部を形成しているでしょう。 　ただ簡単にいくつか挙げてみると、日本人は信仰対象をそこまで上げる必要がなかった可能性があります。 　またそもそも信仰対象をそこまで上げるという発想自体がなかったのかもしれません。 ・聖書文化圏ではなぜ神を極限まで持ち上げたのか？ 　聖書文化圏ではこれも宗教や宗派によって温度差はありますが神を以下に持ち上げるかに心血を注がれています。 　これにもいろいろな理由があるでしょう。 　そしてそれぞれの理由にはみんな一理あるのかもしれません。 　網羅的に理由を挙げて言ってもいいのですが先ほど日本人が自分たちの信仰対象をそこまで持ち上げなかった理由を挙げてみたのでそれと比較して考えてみます。 ・聖書文化圏では神様を持ち上げる必要があった 　聖書を読むと特に前半は異教を信仰したい庶民と保守的ユダヤ教徒の戦いみたいなところがあります。 　モーセの市内契約からバビロン捕囚くらいまではその宗教闘争？というかいかにユダヤ教保守派がユダヤ教に関心が薄く他の宗教に魅力を感じて信心している多数派のユダヤ人をどのようにユダヤ教に引き戻すかの歴史が大きな部分を占めています。 　パレスチナ・イスラエルは立地的に文明や民族の交差点みたいなところがあります。 　ユダヤ王国にせよユダヤ人だけが住んでいたわけではありません。 　またいろいろな周辺の先進文化の影響を受けています。 　立地的に地理的・地政学的要衝ですから国内にいろいろなものが流入してきますし交易も盛ん、ユダヤ人自身も故国を離れていろいろな地域で商売なりなんなりをしていたでしょう。 　ほかの国や文化圏の影響を、宗教のみならず言語や文化や文物や移民などいろいろな影響を受けてないと考える方が不思議です。 　それで古代ユダ王国だけでいうといろいろ興亡はあるでしょうが弱小国家である時期が長かったでしょう。 　周辺にはエジプト、オリエント、フェニキアなどの海洋民族、ギリシア人、ローマ人などのあらゆる面で強力な民族、国家の影響を受けざるを得ません。 　ある意味他の宗教の影響を受けない方が難しいでしょう。 　こういう環境の中では宗教は競争しなければいけません。 　いかに自分の宗教がすごいかの競争でもありますし、いかに信者を獲得するための競争でもあります。 　ユダヤ人の宗教は一応民族宗教ですがそもそも文献を作るときにはその文献を作る人の主観や意図が入り込みます。 　それに現代的な意味での民族意識が当時のユダヤ人にあったかというとあった可能性もありますがそもそもなかったでしょう。 　宗教の生き残り競争、信者獲得、というか信者奪回を図るには自分の宗教や神を上げる必要があります。 　日本人が自分の宗教を上げるという発想がなかったという点と古代ユダヤやユダヤの宗教を比較して考えてみましょう。 　信仰対象を偉くしたり超越化したりするといい面もありますが多分望ましくないことが起こることもありうると考えられます。 　例えば神と信者の距離が遠くなるということが考えられます。 　「見たら死ぬ」なら見ることはできません。 　みだりに名前を唱えることも禁止で実際ユダヤ教の神の名は読み方を忘れられてしまいました。 　偶像崇拝も禁止です。 　単に絵や像を作らいないのでこれの何がいけないかと考える人も多いでしょう。 　そもそも偉大な神の像を作るなど不遜です。 　神が形で表されると考えるのも不遜です。 　神は創造主でその他すべての物は神の被造物ですが緒戦被造物にしか過ぎないもので神をかたどるなど不遜の極みです。 　それに絵や彫像を作るとそれに感情移入して物に対する信仰が発生してしまう可能性があります。 　被造物で神をかたどるだけでも不敬なのにそれに感情移入してただの物に過ぎないものを神のごとく扱うというのはますます持って不遜です。 　聖書系宗教は温度差はありますが、物に対して神を感じるのを嫌がりますし禁止します。 　物に対して神性や聖性を感じるのみならず、物に対して感情移入、心や魂や情熱や何かわかりませんがいろいろな人間の情念というか想いを籠めようとすることに対して常に神経をとがらせています。 　そういうことは聖書の神に対する不遜どころか多神教の温床になるかもしれません。 　神は聖書の神一人（１柱）しかこの世に存在しないということになっているのに、人情というか人間にはいくつかの神、いくつかの信仰対象を作ってしまうという習性があるということを歴史は示唆しています。 ・神は絶対で超越で極限なら人と神の距離は無限大 　神をアゲアゲするといい面もあるかもしれませんがあえてデメリットと思われる面を上げてみます。 　神を超越化すればするほど人間との距離は開いていきます。 　あまり距離が空きすぎると事実上存在しないのとおんなじになってしまう危険性があります。 　空洞化というか空っぽ化してしまう可能性があります。 　ジャンプのバトル漫画とは違うかもしれませんがドラゴンボールのように成功しないと面白くなくなってきて読者もしらけてしまって打ち切りになることがよくありました。 　今でもあるかもしれません。 　形骸化させずに神と人間の間をつなぐために聖書系宗教では宗教や宗派によって共通するもの、違うものを含めて十重二十重に宗教力を強めるための工夫をいろいろ行ってきました。 　ただこういうのも時代や地域によって有効な対策は違いますし、ある地域時代で有効だった対策が別の時代や場所や文化圏ではマイナスになる場合もあります。 　もしかしたら日本で聖書系宗教が広まりにくいのも何かそういうものが関係しているのかもしれません。 ・神を高めると具体的にどうなるのか 　聖書系宗教の基本は契約です。 　これはユダヤ教でもキリスト教でもイスラム教でも変わりません。 　たとえばキリスト教は契約が非常に緩く見えますが守るべきものは守っています。 　キリスト教では新約聖書で食物制限なくしたのでユダヤ人やイスラム教徒と違って何でも食べていいだけでこれは聖書に従って食べているだけです。 　このように契約や律法を守るのが信者である基本です。 　それ以外にもいろんな習慣や儀礼や儀式や注釈や聖書以外の文書がいろいろあります。 　ユダヤ教ならミシュナとかイスラム教ならコーランやハディスなどが信者の生活や信心に影響を与えるでしょう。 　また聖書に採用されなくても当時の文献はたくさんあります。 　そういう中で一日に何回かお祈りするとかそういうのが習慣として生きていくでしょうし安息日などもあります。 　ただ一神教と神の超越性を保つために時代や地域、文化もどんどん変わっていくのである時期には宗教に必要だったものが宗教に立っておかしな作用や場合によっては反宗教的な土台になることもあります。 ・近代という時代 　神は世界や人間や世界を作りました。 　また週末の日には死んだ人間を復活させ生きている間に契約をきちんと守っていたかを侵犯します。 　こういうはっきりした役割はあるのですが日常で神様がどう我々とかかわるのかは微妙です。 　洋の東西苦しいときは神頼みしたくなる心理が働くという研究があります。 　ただ聖書の神様は苦しんでいる人間を簡単に助けてくれるとは限りませんし、そういう神様の利用をいましめるような聖書の記述もあります。 　困ったときに頼れないとなるとなかなか信者にとってはマイナスポイントです。 　神は世界を作って世界の法則を作ったので後はそのシステムに沿って世界は勝手に動いていくという理神論という考え方もあります。 　そうするとシステムがあるだけでシステムが稼働している間は神はいようがいまいが事実上どっちでもいいのではないか、という考え方も生まれます。 　多分こういうのが西洋近代の成立に関係します。 　近代社会学を見るとウェーバーにせよゾンバルトにせよシステム的な思考です。 　かつ魔術的思考というか迷信的なものを排します。 　経済学の方でも古典経済学は物質主知劇というか物は物として感情などを籠めないで見ていきましょう、という方向で経済や商業、金融が発展していきます。 　唯粒論的、といってもよくこれは自由主義でもマルクス主義でも変わりません。 　カルヴァンにせよライプニッツにせよラプラスの悪魔にせよ予定調和的というか決定論的です。 　一個人がどう臨んだところで神とつながることがない世界観です。 ・そもそも昔から神と人間は接触が薄い 　時に神秘体験や超越体験をして神を感じることがあります。 　F1のアイルトンセナはレース中神を感じたそうです。 　宇宙飛行士で神を感じてその後聖職者になった人もいるそうです。 　高名な登山家ラインホルト・メスなーは登山中の危機的状況で神を感じたそうです。 　素潜りで100m以上潜るような記録を争っていた時期に選手のひとりが神のようなものを感じた、というのを聞きました。 　イルカ博士のジョン・C・リリーは人間を無刺激状態にしてLSDのような幻覚剤を投与したら超越体験を観察したそうです。 　ハーバード大学の元教授でサイケデリック文化やヒッピー文化の祖であるティモシー・リアリーは向精神薬で神秘体験をするのを目指しました。 　こういうのは全て特殊な状況によっての神の体験です。 　日常生活で神を感じる方法ではありません。 　新興宗教でもカルトが特殊な修行で非日常体験を感じさせる手法があるのは有名です。 　正統的宗教でも神を感じるために進歩主義や狂騒状態、ある種の薬剤（大麻など）を使う場合があります。 　イスラム神秘主義は有名です。 　キリスト教でも神智主義というのが流行ったことがありました。 　ユダヤ教の超正統派と言われる現在の超右翼というか超保守派は（超正統派の他にユダヤ教徒には超保守派というのもあるのでそれとは違います）近代初期にウクライナ周辺で生まれた当時はカルト的と言われた新興宗派で歌ったり踊ったりの狂騒状態になる集会を行うようなもので当時の他の普通のユダヤ教徒からは奇異な目で見られていたそうです。 　ヨーロッパというのは聖書とキリスト教が強そうですが考えようによっては高々数千年余りの歴史しかありません。 　リトアニア大公国など中世になってもキリスト教化を拒んでいた勢力も普通にありました。 　しかも中世末期には早速人文復興で1000年代前半にはキリスト教も揺らいで近代になるとかなりキリスト教ぐらぐらです。 　1000年というと長いようで短くもあります。 　島も大陸のいろんな民族や宗教や交易や文化が集まった地域では歴史もぐじゃぐじゃです。 　日本はなんだかんだと言って平和でした。 　というか日本はめちゃめちゃ平和でした。 　戦争は文明を発展させたりもしますがいろいろ世界がややこしくなっていきます。 　平和な時代は成熟を許してくれます。 　何かを急いでやらなくても比較的好きなことをしていられる緩くて甘い世界です。 　あまりとんがってラディカルなことをしないでいられることも多いでしょう。 　 ・聖書文化圏と日本では置かれた環境が全く違った 　聖書系宗教は非常にごちゃごちゃした環境で生まれて維持してきた宗教群です。 　日本は島国で大陸のごとを人ごとのように眺められていられる時期が長かった過去、ヒストリーがあります。 　何もかも全然違うのに同じような宗教になるとは逆に変な話です。 　聖書系の宗教が排他的唯一神教になるのもそれなりに理由付けできますし、それが逆に近代に脱宗教や理神論、無神論、不可知論を生む母体になったのかもしれません。 　唯物論的な社会、経済、科学、技術、産業を生むのに役に立ったのかもしれません。 　逆に日本がそういうものをうめなかったのは神様と人間が近すぎた、関係が近いし水臭くない関係をずっと持ってきたせいかもしれません。 　この傾向は現在でもあると思います。 　ここら辺の違和感が聖書的世界と日本が全く違う文化圏として比較される原因の一つかもしれません。

The Essential Difference Between Japan and Biblical Cultures: What Institutions Cannot Change

The Essential Difference Between Japan and Biblical Cultures: What Institutions Cannot Change Understanding This Reveals the Essence When we engage with the world, where we place our "heart" (kokoro) differs by culture. In Japan, there is a strong tendency to perceive a spiritual essence in objects and to imbue actions with sentiment (jō) through the concept of "the Way" (michi). In contrast, in the Biblical cultural sphere, the doctrine of a strict distinction between the Creator and the created, along with the covenant (the Law), suppresses the excessive attribution of divinity to objects. The difference between the two has been projected not only onto religious practices but also onto art, finance, and technological ethics—though one must avoid generalizations, as variations across eras and sects are significant. This essay will re-examine this difference through the twin axes of the "capacity for emotional projection" and the "governing power of the covenant." Attitudes and Sensibilities Toward Things are Fundamentally and Powerfully Different The idea that "all people are the same" is a lie. This is not about inequality or discrimination. It's about a difference in how we perceive the world. More specifically, our sensibilities toward things are different. While this may be an acquired trait, it creates a fundamental divergence. What is this difference? It can be summarized as follows: "In the Biblical cultural sphere, people are trained not to feel divinity in things (the created), whereas in Japan, people are trained to feel a heart or spirit (Buddha-nature or divinity) in things." Japanese Culture Projects Emotion; Biblical Culture Keeps Its Distance If I may speak bluntly, even at the risk of being misunderstood, Japanese culture is one that trains people to project their emotions—to pour their feelings, heart, passion, or soul into physical objects. In contrast, the mindset of the Biblical cultural sphere—though there are variations between, say, Catholics and Protestants—is a culture that trains people not to project emotion onto objects, or to at least restrain it. To a certain degree, this is why Catholics might feel more personable, while Protestants, like many in Britain or America, can seem aloof and cold. Though the trend has changed recently, in the past, Japanese students studying in the UK or the US often felt they received a rather cold reception. Natsume Soseki is a famous example. Amidst the chilly atmosphere of England, he verged on a nervous breakdown. Upon returning to Japan, he grappled with Western modernization, and through experiences like the ritual suicide of General Nogi Maresuke and his own battle with a bleeding ulcer, he came to realize the ancient heart (kokoro) of the Japanese people. The history of Japanese thought is a history of the heart. In ancient times, it was the "clear and bright heart" (seimeishin); in the medieval period, the "honest heart" (shōjiki); and at the end of the Edo period, the "sincere heart" (seijitsu). It is a philosophy of kokoro, or what can be rephrased as a philosophy of chūjo (sincerity and empathy). Chū (忠) means sincerity and earnestness—it is internal to one's own heart. Soseki was raised in the Edo era and belonged to a generation that remembered it. Mori Ogai, also deeply moved by Nogi's suicide, wrote a novel about it; clearly, it struck a chord with those raised before the Meiji era. Nogi Maresuke was a fellow student and relative of Yoshida Shoin. They received a spartan education in selfless public service under the same master. Yoshida Shoin's philosophy, in a word, is a philosophy of the heart. The Wang Yangming school of Neo-Confucianism, which entered Japan during the Edo period, was adapted into a Japanese form called Shingaku ("heart-learning") and, though it had unique aspects developed by figures like Ishida Baigan, it spread among the common people and became the spiritual pillar for the patriots of the Meiji Restoration. Jo (恕) means compassion and forgiveness. As the character's form suggests (like-hearted), it is the act of thinking and feeling from another person's perspective. Confucius called this the most important thing in Confucianism, or perhaps for all humanity. He went further, stating, "The way of the noble person is nothing but sincerity and empathy (chūjo)," implying it is a sufficient condition. While perhaps a rhetorical flourish, taken literally, it means that for a human being, having a heart and showing consideration is all that is needed. The Western Case In contrast, Western culture can be described as one of emotional distance. Excessive emotional projection is avoided because it could lead to the impiety of feeling divinity in objects other than God, or seeing God in what is merely His creation. As such, people are trained to maintain a certain emotional distance from things. Of course, being human, people do project emotions onto many things, so the boundary is ambiguous. In the days of a more fundamentalist Saudi Arabia, photographs, pictures, and dolls were banned from the country. Seeing events like the modern Japan Expo there might seem unbelievable now, but that former stance was, in a way, more faithful to the scriptures. Marc Chagall, a Jewish painter, was a special case. Not projecting emotion onto things is well-suited for commerce and finance. In Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, the Jewish merchant Shylock is depicted as a villain. But the Catholic world, which permitted idols, and a Jewish merchant, who was forbidden from idolatry and engaged in moneylending (interpreted as forbidden in Christianity), likely had such different sensibilities as to be temperamentally incompatible. Conversely, the fact that Protestantism, which banned idolatry, gave birth to both capitalism and Marxism may have something to do with this lack of emotional projection onto objects. First, from Japan The Japanese people feel a heart (kokoro) in things. It's unclear if this is a remnant of ancient animism, but modern Japanese people certainly have animistic elements. Part of this may be the Shinto idea of Yaoyorozu no Kami (eight million gods). The Kojiki and Nihon Shoki depict gods as natural objects, or natural objects as gods. It might also be the influence of the Tendai Buddhist concept that "all mountains, rivers, plants, and trees have Buddha-nature." It posits that all things possess an innate potential for enlightenment. The influence of Esoteric Buddhism, which likely came from Hinduism, may also play a role; it too sees objects as Buddhas or their attendants. On top of this, it is thought that Prince Shōtoku intentionally promoted religious syncretism through the concept of Honji Suijaku, where Shinto gods were seen as manifestations of Buddhist deities. There is also the influence of Taoist thought. Though different from the Tao of Laozi and Zhuangzi, Japan uniquely transformed the concept of "the Way" (dō or michi), particularly through the influence of Zen. Every action and object is seen as part of the total cultivation of the spirit and heart. This is a way of thinking that elevates not only the self but also the object. In Kendo, one feels a spirit in the sword; in the Tea Ceremony, one pours one's heart into every action, gesture, and the space itself. Taoism itself sees the divine in the earthly order. Though less conspicuous, Taoism has dissolved into Japanese culture in various forms, such as local confraternities (kō) and the Seven Lucky Gods. What the Japanese Imbue in Objects The Japanese imbue objects with something. What exactly that is, is hard to say, and it could be many things. Perhaps they pour in their soul or passion. Perhaps it is emotional projection. Perhaps it is the kokoro that Soseki realized in his later years. Perhaps, as the mathematician Oka Kiyoshi said, it is emotion or sentiment (jōcho). Perhaps it is personification. Perhaps they feel Buddha-nature or divinity. Perhaps they see all things as part of reincarnation, not discriminating between them and humans, but seeing them as equals. Perhaps they believe that something like a tsukumogami (a spirit that comes to inhabit old tools) dwells in objects. Perhaps the Chinese idea of hun and po (two aspects of the soul) is present. Perhaps, as in the Ainu bear ceremony (Iyomante) or Japanese folktales, they believe animals can become human. The examples are endless, but this way of thinking is, in fact, heretical from the perspective of the Bible. Biblical Culture Does Not View Things with Emotion In the Biblical cultural sphere, people do not view things with emotion; they are trained not to. "Emotion" is too broad, so let's specify it here as divinity or a heart/spirit. One reason is that the Bible regulates it. Or perhaps, also related to the Bible, there is a difference between agrarian and pastoral peoples. The Japanese, being Buddhist, have precepts against taking life. Truly, one should not kill not only animals but also plants. That is why Buddhist monks in the past practiced alms-gathering (takuhatsu) to eat. They ate what was given by others. What was given might be a dead creature, but that was accepted to some extent. On the other hand, for pastoralists, managing the psychological distance with their livestock is a crucial part of their work. They must at times kill, eat, process, castrate, brand, injure, exchange, sell, or transfer their animals. It is necessary not to become too attached to livestock, or even if one does, one must do what needs to be done, even if it is pitiful for the animal. In such cases, one must control one's emotions towards the livestock. Even if one feels sorry for a beloved animal, one may have to kill and eat it to survive. One might need to suppress emotions, avoid having them in the first place, or perform rituals to process feelings that are difficult to sort out. The Relationship with the God of the Bible The relationship between God and humanity in the Bible is defined by the "covenant" (keiyaku), a concept that does not play a central role in Japanese religion or thought. The structure of the Bible can be seen as follows: The Bible is constructed as a grand narrative. This narrative is like a history of humanity, which then becomes a history of the relationship between God and the Jewish people. As various episodes and religious ideas of the Jewish people were adopted as scripture, it also became like a collection of stories. What is important in this history is the relationship with God, and in the Bible, this relationship is framed by covenants. This allows for another way of reading the Bible: as a contract. The Bible can be seen as a book of covenants, with the narrative serving to connect the circumstances of those covenants. The terms of the contract are called the Law (Rippō). If we see law as a form of social contract, the Bible can be read as a law book. In that case, the non-legal parts can be seen as explaining the reasons and circumstances under which the covenants were made. The Bible’s structure is a covenant with God. The text is comprised of a legal code like the Six Codes of Japan, and the narrative that connects the background of those laws (covenants). A contract has Party A and Party B. Party A is the one and only God as the Creator; Party B is humanity as the created. The one God, having made the covenant, forbids in the contract any dalliance with other gods. The contract also stipulates a strict distinction between the one God and all of His creations, including humans. And to protect the contents of that covenant, it lays out dozens of meticulous contractual clauses. To see the covenant relationship of the Bible in practice, consider the following examples. (You can skim this section.) Covenants and Their Renewals in the Bible 1. Main Types of Covenants Noahic Covenant Abrahamic Covenant Mosaic (Sinai) Covenant Davidic Covenant New Covenant 2. Key Scenes of Covenant "Renewal" and Reaffirmation Reaffirmation of the Sinai Covenant (after the Golden Calf incident) Reading of the Law and Vows at Mount Ebal/Gerizim (upon entering Canaan) Covenant Renewal at Shechem (Joshua’s "Choose you this day whom ye will serve") National Repentance in the time of Samuel Nationwide Covenant of King Asa Reformation Covenant of Jehoiada the High Priest and King Joash Hezekiah's Restoration of the Temple and Worship Josiah's Covenant Renewal after finding the "Book of the Law" Covenant for the Liberation of Slaves (in the time of Zedekiah, though immediately broken) Repentance and Signing of the Covenant after the return from Babylon (Ezra-Nehemiah) 3. From Prophecy to Fulfillment Prophecy of a "New Covenant" by Jeremiah and others Declaration of the fulfillment of the "New Covenant" at the Lord's Supper Furthermore, both Christ and Muhammad are presented as bringing a new covenant. Paul's writings, the Jewish rabbis' Mishnah, and Muhammad's Quran and Hadith, even if not covenants themselves, serve to regulate the lives of believers. Religions of the Book are Different from Japanese Religions In Japan, Shinto has no clear dogma. If anything, it is a sensibility of "let's be clean and pure." Buddhism is essentially a philosophy. While some sects could be called religions, the core of Mahayana Buddhism in Japan is centered on the teachings of the Buddha as reconstructed through Nāgārjuna's theories of Emptiness and the Middle Way. The core of Japanese Buddhism is philosophy. Taoism has two parts: the philosophy of Laozi and Zhuangzi, and the folk religion. The latter might be called a religion, but it's different from the Biblical type. Covenants do not play a major role. To get a feel for it, one might read Journey to the West. However, it's different from Chinese Taoism, which is like a celestial copy of the terrestrial emperor and bureaucratic system. Japan has its own Emperor, so there was no need for such a celestial copy; it adopted only what was useful and edited it in a Japanese style. Confucianism, from Confucius's ideal of restoring the Rites of Zhou through its various transformations into Zhu Xi school or Wang Yangming school, is generally agreed not to be a religion. The Wang Yangming school can be described as subjective idealism, where the self is the world, so one's actions carry the weight of the entire world. This had an overwhelming influence on Japanese history from the Shingaku movement in the Edo period to the Meiji Restoration. There are also things like Onmyōdō, but isn't that more of a technology than a religion? Animism, totemism, and shamanism may exist, but they seem to have been lumped together with Shinto. Thus, religions heavily centered on covenants are not prevalent in Japan. Then there are yōkai (monsters and spirits). In Japan, there are quite a few things that are not well understood, and there used to be many more. In a short story by Shinichi Hoshi, an inexplicable being appears to the protagonist. When asked what it is, it denies every category, finally saying, "You see, the world also contains things without meaning, like you and me," before disappearing. Humans tend to interpret and assign meaning, but we mostly live on a foundation of meaningless things. Therefore, it seems that Biblical religions or ideologies have not had a major impact on the Japanese mentality. The Bible and Monotheism The Bible is monotheistic. Once a believer has entered into the covenant, they are expected to shun belief in or feeling of divinity in other gods. Once the covenant with God is made, infidelity, in a very strict sense, is not permitted. In the Bible, it is forbidden to feel divinity in things. The Bible strictly distinguishes between God the Creator and all His creations, including humans. Creations are not allowed to represent God. Making pictures or statues of God is not permitted—the so-called prohibition of idolatry. Anything that would lead to feeling God in something other than God is preemptively forbidden. It is blasphemous to suggest that a creation can represent God. Moreover, one is not allowed to say God's name in vain, draw it, or make statues of it. So much so that God's name was forgotten in history. It seems to have been reconstructed now, but how is unknown. We may be calling him Yahweh without being entirely sure of the reconstruction. As such, feeling divinity in any and all things is forbidden. One may feel divinity in God himself, but basically, one cannot meet God. Among the characters in the Bible, only a handful, perhaps two to four at most, have ever seen God. Many have heard His voice. Such people are called prophets (預言者, yogensha), not to be confused with fortune-tellers (予言者, yogen-sha). The point is, one must not feel God in things, whether it be the God of the Bible or the gods of other religions. What is Divinity? What divinity is becomes an issue, and it is a difficult one. What kind of feeling constitutes feeling God—a sacred feeling, a holy feeling? It's a complex problem. For the Japanese, it's fine to feel divinity or whatever else they want in things. But for people of the Book, if they feel divinity in something and mistake it for God, they're out. To separate God from all other things, to feel divinity only in God and to deny it in all other things, is easy to say but very unclear in practice. The Bible states that God created man in His own image. Does this mean that the faith of the Bible is to imagine something like a human in one's mind, feel divinity towards it, hold a sense of faith, and practice keeping the covenant? Or is it presumptuous to imagine God in the image of a specific human? All these questions arise when one thinks in detail, and this has become the subject of theological debates among scholars East and West, much like Zen koans, used as an analogy for things that are arcane, complex, and incomprehensible. One solution is to strive not to have any feelings for any things. It seems this strategy has often been used throughout history. Modernity and God To pursue the relationship between God and man in detail is difficult. This was true not only for theologians but also for philosophers and during the Reformation. Calvin preached predestination. This is one theory about the relationship between God and man. Leibniz advocated for Monadology and the Pre-established Harmony. This is another model of the God-man relationship. Spinoza advocated for pantheism. This too is a Spinozan image of God. With the rise of science, deism also appeared. God created the system and laws of the world, and now it just runs according to them. There is also the idea of Laplace's demon. This is a deterministic cosmology, and applying it to the relationship between God and man yields interesting conclusions. The modern era was becoming a time when agnosticism and atheism about God could be freely discussed. Einstein did not choose to become a Jew because he could not believe in God. In Judaism, there is a ceremony in the early teens where a child chooses whether or not to become a Jew. Not viewing objects with emotion was compatible with modernity; or rather, perhaps Western civilization was made possible by not viewing objects with emotion. Marx, whose grandfather was a rabbi and who converted to Christianity in his grandfather's generation or so, advocated for materialism and historical materialism. Marx's thought is also in the lineage of classical economics. The idea of not viewing things with emotion was likely very compatible with economics, commerce, and finance. Things can become vessels for prices and desires in a materialistic, secular way, instead of emotions. That is what economics is, and this line of thought is common to Weber's and Sombart's studies of capitalism. If this is hard to understand, consider the recent trends of neoliberalism and globalism. The international financial capitalism symbolized by Wall Street is built on severing emotion from things—except for emotions like desire or value in the sense of price. The Most Important Prayer in Judaism The following is the "Shema Yisrael," the most important prayer in Judaism, which expresses the oneness of God and love for God. Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. (Blessed be the name of the glory of His kingdom forever and ever.) ※ This line is inserted when recited as a prayer. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. These words, which I command you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. This prayer also contains the words "heart" and "soul." The point is not about this prayer, but about the ambiguity of pouring one's heart or soul into things. Humans have senses and sensibilities, and we feel all sorts of things in objects. To feel sanctity or divinity in them and think of it as the God of the Bible or another god might not be recommended in the Biblical cultural sphere, but what constitutes sanctity or divinity is very ambiguous. In any culture, it seems that humans pour their heart, soul, and strength into their work. The Japanese, however, consider it a good thing to elevate their senses, mind, and body to the point of feeling divinity or sanctity in it. This is the essence of the Japanese engineer's spirit, the craftsman's spirit, and the concept of "the Way" (michi). On the other hand, I have not studied the mindset of technicians in the Biblical cultural sphere, so I do not know. The religious paintings and sculptures of the West are magnificent, as seen in Michelangelo, but Catholicism does not prohibit idolatry or the creation of idols. Even within the Biblical cultural sphere, there must be differences depending on the era, region, and sect. No Christian or Muslim today watches anime and feels God in it. On the other hand, groups like the Taliban have destroyed historically valuable cultural assets like Buddhist statues. Perhaps this is like the iconoclasm of the Protestants. When you think about it, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam do not have such long histories. Islam is about 1,500 years old, Christianity about 2,000, and Judaism's holy texts may have been compiled later than Christianity's. Even if we mark the beginning of modern Rabbinic Judaism with the reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah after the Babylonian exile, that's less than 2,500 years ago. As the Bible shows, before the Babylonian exile, the Jewish populace was heavily influenced by the religions of surrounding regions. Christianity is full of influences from non-Christian religions. Well, Judaism too was heavily influenced by the ancient Orient. Religions themselves change with the times. Religious doctrines and interpretations also change. The Catholic Church only recognized non-Catholic religions from the mid-20th century onwards. History can be seen as surprisingly short. In that time, ideas about objects have also varied and changed with the era, region, and sect. Conclusion: The Japanese Imbue with Heart; Biblical Cultures are Cautious The Japanese people pour their hearts into all things and will even praise the act of feeling divinity in objects, as long as it is in a positive, respectful direction. On the other hand, the Biblical cultural sphere is extremely cautious about objects—both in their creation and in how one feels about them. To feel divinity in an object and treat it as a god, as is done in Japan, is forbidden. The idea of feeling divinity in objects is easy to say, but what it refers to is unclear, so interpretation becomes arbitrary at any time and place. Trying to make it non-arbitrary makes the discussion too difficult and impractical for the common person. It becomes a debate for the narrow world of Jewish legal scholars (rabbis, Pharisees) and theologians, detached from the general believer. However, the ethos that one should not fetishize objects is constantly being transmitted. The Japanese, as well as people from non-Biblical Buddhist and Hindu countries, and those who still maintain old, non-Biblical traditions (though they are few now), or people in regions like Africa and South America even after being Biblicized, have a tendency similar to the Japanese to easily find divinity. For the people of the Book, the covenant is extremely important. The fact that Christians do not have food laws like Halal is because it is written in the Bible so; the principles are solid. But in actual practice, life, reality, and application, they are flexible. And in the grand sweep of history, secularization is advancing, and the fanatical individuals and groups that appear in history are weaker and fewer in number now. Of course, there is terrorism, and the label of terrorism is also a problem, but the world is a quieter place than it was a few decades ago. If anything, when we look at the war in Ukraine or Israel's war in Gaza, it is the state that seems more terrifying. In summary, in Japan, it does not matter what one feels in objects. One can feel a god or a Buddha, and there is a deep-rooted culture that suggests one should feel them. This is a core aspect of "Japaneseness" that is extremely powerful and difficult to eliminate, even if it was sometimes obscured by Meiji-era enlightenment thinking. Perhaps this is the aspect that is now attracting global attention as part of the "Japan boom" and its soft power. However, it is a difficult point to grasp without a real sense of the mentality, history, and circumstances of both the Japanese and Biblical ways of thinking. On the other hand, the idea of restricting a certain kind of emotional projection, presence, sanctity, or divinity in objects is also difficult to understand for those who grew up solely within the Biblical cultural sphere and do not know a different culture like Japan's. And for an outsider like a Japanese person, it is also difficult to understand without considerable study. But knowing both is powerful. If one wants to discuss Japanese identity or comparative cultural theory between Japan and the Biblical sphere, this perspective is a necessary condition.

日本と聖書文化の本質的な違い、制度を変えたくらいでは変わらないもの これが分かれば本質が理解できる

日本と聖書文化の本質的な違い、制度を変えたくらいでは変わらないもの これが分かれば本質が理解できる 私たちが世界に触れるとき、何に「心」を置くかは文化によって異なる。日本では対象に心性を感じ取り、行為に「道」を通じて情を込める傾向が強い。対して聖書文化圏では、創造主と被造物を厳密に区別する教義と契約（律法）が、対象への過度な神性付与を抑制する。両者の差は、宗教実践だけでなく、美術・金融・技術倫理にも射影されてきた——ただし時代・宗派差は大きく、断定は避けたい。本稿はこの差異を「感情移入の許容量」と「契約の統治力」という二軸で読み直す。 ・日本と聖書文化圏では物事に対する態度と感性が根本的で強力に異なる 　「人間はみな同じ」というのは嘘です。 　別に平等でないとか差別があるとかそういう話ではありません。 　世界の認識の仕方が異なります。 　もっと細かく言えば事物に対する感性が異なります。 　これはたぶん後天的な物ですが根本的な違いを生じます。 　何が違うかというと、 「聖書文化圏では事物（被造物）に神性を感じない（ように訓練される）のに対し、日本では事物に心（仏性や神性）を感じる（ように訓練される）」 ということに集約されます。 ・日本は感情移入する文化、聖書文化圏は対象に距離を取る文化 　誤解を恐れずに言えば、或いは誤解されてもいいので言わせてもらえば、日本は感情移入する、あるいは感情やら心やら情熱やら魂を実物に込めるように訓練を行う文化です。 　それに対して聖書文化圏の発想は例えばキリスト教のカトリックやプロテスタントでは温度差がある者の、対象に対する感情移入をしない、あるいは感情移入をしないように訓練する文化です。 　その程度が上がると、例えばキリスト教徒ならカトリックの方が人懐っこく感じて、イギリス人やアメリカ人などのプロテスタントはそっけなく冷たく感じたりします。 　最近は傾向が変わりましたが大昔はイギリスやアメリカなんかに留学すると結構冷たい対応をされたように感じることがあったようです。 　夏目漱石なんかが有名でしょう。 　つめたいイギリスの雰囲気の中でノイローゼというか精神病発症っぽくなりつつ、帰ってきた日本でも西洋近代化に悩み乃木希典の殉死や潰瘍の喀血などを経て日本人古来の心というものに気づいていきます。 　日本思想史は心の思想なので古代は清明心、中世は正直の思想、幕末は誠実の思想と変遷していきますがそれは心の思想、或いは忠恕の思想と言い換えることができます。 　忠は真心とまじめなことで自分の心の中です。 　漱石は江戸時代育ちなので江戸時代の日本を覚えている世代です。 　森鴎外も乃木希典の殉死には感銘を受けて小説を書いていますので何か江戸時代育ち以前の人たちには感じるところがあったのでしょう。 　乃木希典は吉田松陰の兄弟弟子で親戚です。 　同じ師匠の下滅私奉公のスパルタ教育を受けています。 　吉田松陰の哲学は一言でいえば心の哲学です。 　江戸時代に入った儒教の亜流の陽明学は江戸初期から心学という形に日本的に編集され（石田梅岩などの独走の部分も多いですが）庶民にも広がり、幕末の志士たちの精神的な主柱になりました。 　恕は思いやりと許すことで、字形のごとく人の気持ちになって考えること、感じることです。 　これを孔子は儒教で、あるいは人間にとって一番大切なものと言っています。 　一番大切どころか「君子の倫は忠恕のみ」十分条件と言っています。 　まあ修辞的に強調したいだけかもしれませんが、字義通りにとれば人間は忠恕、心や心遣いがあればそれだけでよい、といっていることになります。 ・西洋の場合 　西洋はそれに対して水臭い文化と言えば文化です。 　過度な感情移入は神以外の対象に神性さを感じたり、神の被造物に過ぎないものに神を感じる不敬をなすことになるかもしれないのである種事物に対して感情的な距離を取るような訓練を受けます。 　そうは言っても人間ですからいろんなものには感情移入してしまうのでそこの境界はあいまいです。 　原理主義的な厳しいころのサウジアラビアでは国内に写真も絵も人形も持ち込み禁止でした。 　現在のジャパンエキスポとかしているのを見ると信じられないのかもしれませんがそっちの方が聖書に忠実と言えば忠実な感じがします。 　ユダヤ人なのに画家になったシャガールなどは特殊な例でした。 　物に感情移入しないのは商売や金融に向いています。 　シェイクスピアのヴェニスの商人ではユダヤ商人のシャイロックが悪役のように書かれていますがそもそも偶像崇拝を許すカトリックと偶像崇拝禁止でかつ聖書では禁止されている金貸しをしているとキリスト教では解釈されるユダヤ人の商人ではかなり感覚が違うというか性格的に相性が悪かった可能性があります。 　逆に偶像崇拝を禁止したプロテスタントが資本主義やマルクス主義を作ったのはものに感情移入しないことと何か関係があるかもしれません。 ・まず日本から 　日本人は物事に心を感じます。 　日本人が大昔のアニミズムを残しているのかは分かりませんが現代の日本人はアニミズム的な要素があります。 　一部は神道の八百万の神々の考えかもしれません。 　日本書紀やら古事記を見ても神様を自然物と見立てています。 　あるいは自然物を神と見立てています。 　また天台宗の山川草木悉皆仏性的な考え方かもしれません。 　全ての事物に仏性が宿ると考えます。 　あるいはヒンドゥー教あたりの影響を受けている密教の影響もあるかもしれません。 　密教ややはり事物を仏や仏の眷属と見立てます。 　その上聖徳太子が本地垂迹の神仏習合で宗教混交（シンクレディズム）を意図的に行ったと思われます。 　また老荘の思想の影響があります。 　老荘の道とは違いますが日本は道を禅の影響などを通じて独特に作り変えています。 　あらゆる行動や対象をトータルの精神や心の修養とみています。 これは自分を高めるだけでなく対象をも高める考え方です。 剣道なら剣にも心を感じ茶道なら作法所作場の全てに心を籠めます。 道教もそれ自体が神を地上の秩序と見立てるものです。 道教はあまり目立った形ではないかもしれませんが講や七福神などいろいろな形で日本文化に溶け込んでいます。 ・日本人が対象に込めるもの 　日本人は対象に何かを籠めます。 　何を籠めるのかはよく分かりませんしいろいろかもしれません。 　魂や情熱を込めるのかもしれません。 　感情移入をするのかもしれません。 　漱石が晩年に悟った心を籠めるのかもしれません。 　数学者の岡潔が言うように情緒だか情を籠めるのかもしれません。 　擬人化を行うのかもしれません。 　仏性や神性を感じるのかもしれません。 　万物を輪廻転生するものとして人間と差別するものとしてではなく平等に見るのかもしれません。 　物にも付喪神のような何かが宿ると考えているのかもしれません。 　中国の魂魄の思想があるのかもしれません。 　アイヌの熊送りや日本昔話のように動物も人間になりうると考えているのかもしれません。 　例を挙げればきりがありませんがこういう考え方は聖書の考え方では実は異端です。 ・聖書文化は物を感情をこめてみない 　聖書文化圏では物に感情をこめてみませんし、見ないように訓練されています。 　感情というと広すぎるので神性や心とここでは行ってみましょう。 　一つは聖書がそのように規制しています。 　あるいはこれも聖書に関係するのかもしれませんが農耕民と牧畜民の違いがあるのかもしれません。 　後者から言うと日本人は仏教とですから殺生を禁じる戒律があります。 　本当は動物どころか植物も殺してはいけないのです。 　ですから昔の仏教徒は食べるために托鉢を行いました。 　人の施しを食べるのです。 　施されたものも死んだ生物かもしれませんがある程度は仕方ありません。 　一方牧畜民は家畜との心理的距離間のコントロールが重要な仕事です。 　時に殺し、時に食べ、時に資源化し、時に去勢し、時に焼き印を押し、時に傷つけ、時に交換し、時に売買し、時に譲渡しなければいけません。 　家畜に対して思い入れを持たない、あるいは思い入れを持ってもいいのかもしれませんが必要な時には家畜にとっては気の毒なことでもやることはやらなければいけませんのでそういう場合に家畜に対する感情をコントロールする必要があります。 愛する家畜がかわいそうでも生きていくためには殺して食べないといけないかもしれません。 時に感情を押し殺す、時に最初から感情を持たないようにする、時に自分の中で整理しにくい感情を整理するため儀式を行う必要があるかもしれません。 ・聖書の神との関係 　聖書の神と人間との関係は「契約」という日本の宗教や思想では主役にならないものが主役級の役割をなします。 　聖書の立て付けをみると次のようになります。 ・聖書は契約書と契約のいきさつを繋ぐナラティブで出来ている 　聖書の構成は大きな物語のような作りになっています。 　この物語は人類の歴史書のようになっています。 　途中からは神とユダヤ人の関係の歴史書になっています。 　歴史の中でのいろいろなエピソードやユダヤ民族のいろいろな宗教的思想も聖典として採用されればこの物語に加えられるので物語集のようにもなっています。 　この歴史において大切なのは神との関係なのですが、聖書において神と人間との関係は契約によって関係つけられています。 　それによって聖書は別の読み方もできます。 ・聖書は契約書で物語はその契約書を繋ぐいきさつが書かれている 　聖書は契約書であると見ることができます。 　契約の条項を律法と言います。 　法律と似ているというか語順を反対にしたものですが法律が社会契約的なものとしてみるのであれば聖書は法律書としてみることができます。 　その場合法律でない部分は契約が結ばれた理由やいきさつが書かれていると見ることができます。 　法律でも歴史が長いのでイギリスの慣習法や日本の貞永式目や御成敗式目のような法律の積み重ねみたいなところがあります。 　ただイギリスの不文法のようなものではなく逆にめちゃくちゃ成文法です。 　ユダヤ人は「書の民」といわれます。 　歴史が長いですから法律の積み重ねのようになります。 　日本の法律も地層のような積み重ねです。 　明治憲法ができるまでは日本の正当な法律は律令制でした。 　武士が既成事実みたいに凡例集めて実質的な法律を作っていきましたが、公式には大昔の律令制の法律が日本の正当法でそれが明治憲法公布まで続いたわけです。 　　聖書を契約書をメインとしてみると契約の具体的内容である律法がメインでそれ以外は契約に至る経緯を説明したりするエピソード周みたいなもので脇役のように見ることができます。 ・契約とはどんなものか？ 　いかにざっくりと聖書の契約書の側面をまとめてみます。 　聖書文化圏の構造は神との契約です。 　聖書は六法全書のような法律書とその法律（律法）の契約の背景をつなげるナラティブからなります。 　契約書には甲と乙があり、甲は創造主としての唯一神、乙は被造物としての人です。 　唯一神は契約を結んだ以上は他の神に浮気するのを契約書で禁じています。 　また唯一神と唯一神が想像した人間を含めた被造物を厳格に区別することを契約条項としています。 　またその契約内容を守るための周到な契約条項を幾二十重にも張り巡らせています。 　聖書というのは一つの見方として契約書とその間を埋めるストーリーとして捉えることができます。 　聖書の契約関係の実例を列挙します。 　ここは流し読みしてください。 ________________________________________ 聖書における契約とその更新 1. 主要な契約の種類 聖書の根幹を成す主要な契約（神と人との約束）です。 • ノア契約 • アブラハム契約 • モーセ（シナイ）契約 • ダビデ契約 • 新しい契約 ________________________________________ 2. 契約の「更新」および再確認の主要な場面 既存の契約（特にモーセ契約）を、民が改めて確認し、守ることを誓約した歴史的な場面です。 • シナイ契約の再確認（黄金の子牛事件の後） • エバル山／ゲリジム山での律法朗読と誓約（カナン入国時） • シケムでの契約更新（ヨシュアによる「誰に仕えるかを選べ」との問いかけ） • サムエル時代の全国的な悔い改め • ピネハスの「平和の契約」（特定の功績に対する契約） • アサ王による全国的な契約 • 大祭司ヨヤダとヨアシュ王による改革契約 • ヒゼキヤ王による神殿・礼拝の再建 • ヨシヤ王による「律法の書」発見後の契約更新 • 奴隷解放の契約（ゼデキヤ王の時代、ただし直後に破棄） • エズラ・ネヘミヤによるバビロン帰還後の悔い改めと署名 ________________________________________ 3. 預言から成就への流れ 旧約で預言された契約が、新約において成就する流れです。 • エレミヤなどによる「新しい契約」の予告 • 主の晩餐における「新しい契約」の成就宣言 さらにはキリストもムハンマドも新しい契約という事になっていますし、パオロやユダヤ教のラビなどによるミシュナ、ムハンマドのコーランやハディスなども契約でなくても信者を律するものです。 ・聖書系の宗教は日本の宗教とは違う 　日本の宗教はというと神道にははっきりとした教義がありません。 　あるとすれば「きれいで清らかでいよう、きれいで清らかであろう」みたいな感覚的なものです。 　仏教は本質的には哲学です。 　仏教も異論な宗派があるので定義というのによっては宗教と言えるかもしれませんが中核部分は日本に伝わる大乗仏教ではお釈迦様の教えを龍樹（ナーガールジュナ）の空論と中観論で再構成された協議を中心に据えています。 　宗教的な要素がアジアの広域で長い歴史があるのでそういうのがくっついて日本に入ってきている面もありますし、日本でも鎌倉新仏教や明治時代以降もいろんな新興宗教ができますがまあ契約が中心の物は聖書系以外は少ないか勢力が弱いでしょう。 　空論と中観論は西洋哲学の認識論と存在論なので日本仏教の中核部分は哲学です。 　道教は老荘の思想と中国の民間宗教としての道教の部分があります。 　これは宗教と言ってもいいかもしれません。 　ただ聖書型の宗教とは違います。 　契約というものが大きな比重を占めることはありません。 　どんな宗教家というと西遊記とかそれを子供向けに書いた児童書の西遊記を読んでもらえれば何となくわかると思います。 　とはいえ中国の道教とは違います。 　中国の道教は地上の皇帝と官僚の行政制度の天上におけるコピペみたいなものです。 　日本は天皇陛下もいらっしゃるしそんな天上の秩序のコピペは必要ないので頂くところだけ頂いて日本風に編集したものです。 　儒教は同化というと周礼を再現するという孔子からいろいろ変遷を経て朱子学や陽明学みたいなものになりますがこれは多分世界的にも宗教とは違うものというコンセンサスが強いと思います。 　陽明学は主観的唯心論とも言えて世界は自分で自分が世界ですから自らの行動が世界の全てを背負う、世界の全てのケツを持つという感じのある意味世界との一体論です。 　これは江戸時代には心学から明治維新まで日本史に圧倒的な影響を与えました。 　陰陽道みたいなものもありますがこれは宗教というよりテクノロジーではないでしょうか。 　アニミズムやトーテミズムやシャーマニズムみたいなものもあるかもしれませんが何となく神道と一緒くたになっているのではないでしょうか。 　北東アジアのシャーマニズムは儒教やアイヌの宗教に関係あると思いますが。 　というわけで契約バリバリの宗教は日本にはあまりありません。 　戦国時代に入ってきたキリスト教が江戸期を通じて長崎の方に生き残っていたようですが隠れていたので日本全体に大きな影響は及ぼさなかったのではないでしょうか。 　また妖怪みたいなものもあります。 　なんだかよく分からないものは日本には実は結構あるし、昔はもっとありました。 　星新一のショートショートにありますが主人公のところに突然よく分からないものが現れて、お前は何だといろいろ問い詰めても全部否定されて最後に「世の中には意味のないものも尊大するのですよ、私やあなたのように」といって消えていく話があります。 　人間は解釈や意味づけする傾向がありますが人間は大概意味のないものの基盤の上に生きています。 　またよく既存の何かに当てはまらないよく分からないけど活躍する何かは創作や日本の漫画・アニメにはたくさん出てきます。 　一応意味づけされていることが多いですが。 　というわけで聖書系宗教やあるいは聖書系の思想は日本人のメンタリティに大きな影響を及ぼしていないと思われます。 ・聖書は唯一神教 　聖書は一神教です。 　契約を結んで信者になった以上は他の神に信じたり神性を感じたりすることを忌避します。 　聖書は聖書の神以外の神には寛容ではありません。 　聖書の神を信じることも禁止です。 　いったん神と契約を浮かんだら非常に厳格な意味で浮気は許されません。 　 ・聖書では事物に神性を感じるのは禁止 　聖書は他の神に神性を感じることを忌避しますが、神以外の何かの事物に聖書の神を投影することを禁じます。 　聖書文化圏の宗教は神と契約結ぶことで入信して信者になります。 　神と人間は契約を結ぶことで宗教共同体となる構造です。 　これはユダヤ教でもキリスト教でもイスラム教でも変わりません。 　この契約では他の神は認めないという契約であり、他の神を信仰することも認めないという契約内容になっています。 　入信した以上は神以外の事物に神を感じることを原則認めません。 　聖書では創造主である神とその被造物である人間をはじめとするあらゆる事物を厳格に区別します。 　被造物が神をかたどることを許しません。 　神の絵を描いたり神の像を作ることを認めません。 　いわゆる偶像崇拝の禁止です。 　神以外のものに神を感じることになる全てのことはあらかじめ近似されます。 　神を被造物でかたどれるとするのは神に対する冒涜ともいえます。 　たかだか被造物ごときが神のまねごとをすることはできないししてはいけないのです。 　また神の名前をみだりに唱えたり絵にかいたり像を作ることも認めません。 　あまりにも神の名前を唱えなかったため歴史の中で神の名前は忘れられてしまいました。 　現在は復元されているようですがどのように復元されたのかは知りません。 　もしかしたら復元に成功しているとはいいきれないままヤーウェと呼んでいるのかもしれません。 　セム系の言語は母音表記をしないのが今でもアラビア語などで残されているはずです。 　ＹＨＷＨという文字の母音が分からなくなってしまったのではないでしょうかと推測しています。 　特に名乗らず神性4文字としてそのまま扱う場合もあるようです。 　かのごとくあらゆる事物に神性を感じることを禁止します。 　神自体に神性を感じるのはいいのかもしれませんが基本的には神とは会えないものです。 　聖書の登場人物の中で神を見たことがある人はたしか多くて２～４人くらいいたかもしれませんがほとんどいなかったはずです。 　声を聴いたことがある人はたくさん登場します。 　そういう人は預言者と呼ばれたりします。 　未来を予言する予言者と区別することが大切です。 　預と予で漢字が一文字違います。 　つかり聖書の神であろうが他の宗教の神であろうが関係なく事物に神を感じてはいけないのです。 ・神性とは何か？ 　神性とは何かが問題になりますがこれは難しい問題です。 　神聖な感じ、聖なる感じ、どういう感情をもって神を感じるというのかは難しい問題です。 　日本人なら事物に神性を感じようと何を感じようと自由です。 　しかし聖書民は何かに神性を感じて神と見立ててしまったらアウトです。 　神とその他の全ての事物を分けて神には神性を感じるべきでその他の物には神性を感じず感じても否定するというのは言葉でいうのは簡単ですが具体的な実践を考えると非常にはっきりしないことになります。 　聖書には神は自分をかたどって人間を作ったと記されています。 　とすると頭の中で人間のようなものを思い浮かべてそれに対して神性を感じて信仰心を持ち契約を守ると念じて実践することが聖書の信仰でしょうか？ 　それとも神をある特定の人間のイメージで思い浮かべること自体不遜なのでしょうか？ 　こういったもろもろなことが細かく考えると出てきて洋の東西を問わずこういうのが神学者の神学的議論、東洋なら禅問答の様だという風に難解で複雑でよく分からないものをたとえる際の題材になっています。 　一つの解決方法はあらゆる事物に何ら中の感情を持たないように努めることです。 　歴史の中ではこの戦略がしばしば使われたと思われます。 ・近代と神 　神と人間の関係を具体的に細かく追及することは難しいです。　 　これは進学者のみならず哲学者や宗教改革の時もそうでした。 　カルヴァンは予定説というのを唱えます。 　これも神と人間との関係に関する一つの説です。 　ライプニッツはモナド論や予定調和論を唱えました。 　これも神と人間の関係のモデルの一つです。 　スピノザは汎神論を唱えました。 　これもスピノザ風の神のイメージでしょう。 　科学が勃興すると理神論を言うものも現れます。 　神は世界というシステムや法則を作ったので後はそれに従って運航するだけというものです。 　ラプラスの悪魔という考え方もあります。 　これも決定論的宇宙論ですが神と人間との関係をこれに当てはめると興味深い結論になります。 　神の不可知論や無神論というものも語っていい自由な時代に近代はなりつつありました。 　アインシュタインは神は信じられないとユダヤ教徒になる選択をしませんでした。 　ユダヤ教では十代前半に子供にユダヤ教徒になるかどうかを選択させる儀式があります。 　対象を情緒を持って見ないというのは近代とは相性が良かった、というか対象に情緒を見ないようにしたからこそ西洋文明ができたのかもしれません。 　おじいさんがユダヤ教のラビでおじいさんの代か何かにキリスト教徒に改宗したマルクスは唯物論や唯物史観を唱えました。 　マルクスの思想は古典派の経済学の系譜でもあります。 　事物を感情を持って見ないという考え方は経済や商売や金融と相性が良かったと思われます。 　感情の代わりに値段や欲望を即物的、世俗的に入れる容器のようなものに事物はなりえます。 　経済学というのがそういうものですし、資本主義研究のウェーバーでもゾンバルトでもこの点は通底する思考が共通しています。 　分かりにくければ最近まではやっていた新自由主義やグローバリズムがそういうものでした。 　ウォール街で象徴される国際金融資本主義はまさに事物から感情を切り離すことから成り立っています。 　感情を切り離すと言っても欲望や価値というか値付けが感情であればそれを除いてです。 ・ユダヤ教で最も大切な祈り 以下はユダヤ教において最も重要とされる「シェマー・イスラエル」（Shema Yisrael）というお祈りで、神の唯一性と、神への愛を表明する内容です。 聞け、イスラエルよ。我らの神、主は唯一の主である。 （祝されよ、その栄光の御国の御名は、とこしえに。） ※この行は聖書本文にはなく、祈りとして唱える際に挿入される部分です。 あなたは心を尽くし、魂を尽くし、力を尽くして、あなたの神、主を愛しなさい。 今日、私があなたに命じるこれらの言葉を、あなたの心に刻みなさい。 これをあなたの子らに教え込みなさい。あなたが家に座っている時も、道を歩く時も、寝る時も、起きる時も、これについて語りなさい。 これをしるしとしてあなたの手に結び付け、記章として額に置きなさい。 これをあなたの家の門柱と門に書き記しなさい。 この祈りは、ユダヤ教徒が朝と夜に唱える、信仰の中心となる非常に大切なものです。 　この祈りはヘブライ語を習ってたりすると結構早くに学習書に出てきたりします。 　ヘブライ語関係の学習書は昔はミレトス出版というところが出していました。 　現代のヘブライ語は20世紀に復元したもので復元した人はイスラエルのお札に肖像画が印刷されていたと思います。 　この祈りにも心とか魂という言葉が書かれています。 　まあこの祈りが同行ではありませんが事物に心や魂を込める、込めないというのは言うのは簡単ですが具体的にはあいまいです。 　人間には感覚や感性があるので事物には何か思いや感情やその他いろいろな物を感じます。 　それに聖性や神性を感じてそれを聖書の神だとか聖書以外の神だとか思ってしまうのは聖書文化圏ではあまり推奨はしないかもしれませんが、何が聖性で何が神聖かというのも非常にあいまいです。 　何か作業をしている時にその対象に心を籠めたり魂を込めたり力を籠めることはいずれの文化圏でも人間は行いそうですが日本人はそれに神性や聖性を感じるほどに感性や心技体を高めることをよいこととします。 　日本の技術者魂根性や職人精神、道の考え方はそういうものでしょう。 　他方で聖書文化圏の技術者の考え方はどうかというとそういう勉強をしたことがないのでよく分かりません。 　西洋の宗教画や彫刻にはミケランジェロを見ればわかるように素晴らしいものがありますが、カトリックは偶像崇拝やら偶像作成を禁止していません。 　聖書文化圏でも時代や地域や宗派によって温度差があることでしょう。 　クリスチャンでもイスラム教徒でも今どきアニメを見てそれに神を感じる人はいません。 　他方でタリバンみたいなのは歴史的に貴重な文化財の仏像を破壊したりしています。 　新教徒の聖像破壊みたいな感じでしょうか。 よく考えてみるとユダヤ教もキリスト教もイスラム教もそんなに歴史が長いわけでもありません。 　イスラム教は1500年くらいですし、キリスト教も2000年くらい、ユダヤ教も晴天がまとまったのは実はキリスト教より遅いくらいかもしれず仮にバビロン捕囚後のエズラ・ネヘミヤの改革で現在のラビユダヤ教の開始としても2500年足らずです。 　バビロン捕囚以外はほとんどのユダヤ民衆は聖書にもあるようにいろいろな周辺地域の宗教の影響を受けまくっていました。 　さっきのお祈りは申命典という聖書のモーセ五書のひとつにある言葉ですがこれができたのがバビロン捕囚の直前といわれていてこの時の宗教改革は成功していません。 　キリスト教なんかはキリスト教以外の宗教の影響が残りまくりです。 　まあユダヤ教も古代オリエントの影響を受けまくっていますが。 　そもそも宗教というものも時代によって変化していきます。 　宗教の教義や解釈も時代によって変わります。 　カトリックがカトリック以外の宗教を認めたのは高々20世紀の中盤以降です。 　歴史は長いように見えて意外と短いという見方もできます。 　その間事物に関する考え方も時代や地域や宗派によってさまざまでかつ変遷していきました。 ・まとめ：日本人は心を込める、聖書文化圏は心を籠めるのに慎重 　日本人は万物に心を籠めますし事物に神性を感じてポジティブにリスペクトする方向であればむしろ称揚します。 　他方で聖書文化圏においては事物に対して非常に慎重です。 　実部を作る際にもそれに何かを感じる際にも慎重です。 　日本のように事物に神性を感じて神として扱うというのは禁止です。 　事物に神性を感じるという事に関しては言葉でいうのは簡単ですがそれが何を指すのかはっきりしませんので解釈がいつでもどこでも恣意的になります。 　恣意的にならないようにしようとすると議論が難しくなりすぎて庶民には実用的ではありません。 　ユダヤ教の律法学者（ラビ、ファリサイ派）や神学者の狭い世界の議論になってしまい一般信者から遊離してしまいます。 　ただ物神化してはいけないというエートスは常に発信し続けているところがあって日本人もそうですが非聖書民の仏教やヒンドゥー教の国、現代では少なくなりましたが古い非聖書的な伝統を堅持している人たちや聖書化してもアフリカや南アメリカのような地域では日本人のような神性を持ちやすい部分があります。 　聖書の民であれば契約はめちゃめちゃ大切でキリスト教徒にハラールのような食物戒律がないのもこれは聖書に書いてあるからでそこら辺の原則はしっかりしているのですが、実際の実務や生活、現実や運用ベースでは柔軟ですし、大きな歴史の流れで見ると非宗教かが進んでおり歴史に登場するような狂信者や狂信集団は弱く少なくなっているのが実情でしょう。 　まあテロなどありますしテロのレッテルなども問題ではありますが数十年前に比べると世の中おとなしいものです。 　むしろウクライナ戦争やガザのイスラエルの戦争など見ると国家の方が恐ろしい感じです。 　まあまとめると日本は事物に何を感じても構いません。 　神を感じても仏を感じてもいいしむしろ感じるべきだという根強い文化があります。 　これは明治式の啓蒙主義で見えなくなってしまうこともありますが極めて強力で排除が難しい日本らしさの中核でもあります。 　最近はここら辺のところが日本ブームとかソフトパワーとして世界に注目されている時代ではないでしょうか。 　ただなかなか日本人と聖書的思考の両方のメンタリティや歴史やいきさつを実感として知らないと分かりにくい所です。 　他方で事物や対象にある種の感情移入や臨在感、聖性や神性を感じることを制限するという考え方も聖書文化圏だけの中で育ってそうでない日本的な文化を知らない人には分かりにくい考え方ですし、日本人のような他者から見てもよっぽど勉強しないと分かりにくい点はあります。 　しかしこの両者を知っておくと強力です。 　日本人論や聖書文化圏の比較文化論をしたければこの観点は必要条件だと思います。

The Ethical Challenge in Post-structuralism and the Buddhist Middle Way Post-structuralism, the Middle Way, and Their Inherent Flaw

The Ethical Challenge in Post-structuralism and the Buddhist Middle Way Post-structuralism, the Middle Way, and Their Inherent Flaw When one tries to explain modern philosophy and Mahayana Buddhism—which share the same essence—in a simple way, there's a bit of a sleight of hand from a purely philosophical perspective. This intellectual fudge might be why modern philosophy is often called "modern thought" instead of philosophy, and why Buddhism is considered a religion rather than a philosophy. To put it simply, while philosophy could content itself with addressing fundamental questions of ontology and epistemology, the relativism of post-structuralism and the Buddhist concepts of the Middle Way (Madhyamaka) and the Middle Path go a step further: they seem to recommend a certain way of life. In other words, they delve into ethics and morality. They have a vibe of, "You'd be better off living, thinking, and acting this way." Frankly, this is unsolicited advice. Anyone who has studied Kant might remember being deeply moved by the Critique of Pure Reason but feeling unconvinced by the Critique of Practical Reason or the Critique of Judgment. The Critique of Practical Reason deals with morality and ethics. To speak bluntly, it’s a book about what "ought to be," which to a modern reader can feel like an unnecessary, superfluous add-on to Kant's work. We live in a post-religious age, having undergone the baptisms of both Nietzsche and Sartre, in a world of nihilism where we are "condemned to be free." Many of us may feel we don't need the nagging sermons of a meddlesome mother, groundlessly telling us what to do and thus shackling the freedom we worked so hard to attain. While terms like "nihilism" and "condemned to be free" might have negative connotations, let's assume for a moment that freedom is a good thing. Having finally achieved it, the idea of restricting it feels unpleasant. The relativism of post-structuralism and the Buddhist Middle Way can feel like they are imposing just such a preachy burden. The 20th Century's Greatest Invention The greatest invention of the 20th century—though it may have existed in the late 19th century, and Buddhism said the same thing 2,600 years ago—is freedom and structuralism. It may be a contradiction in terms to name two things as the "greatest invention," but let's not sweat the details. Freedom can be seen as the path forged by Nietzsche, Sartre, and other philosophers. Structuralism was born in mathematics but emerged simultaneously in linguistics and other fields, spreading explosively in the mid-20th century. The foundation of modern society is structuralism. While both realism and structuralism can lead to unnatural and counter-intuitive phenomena, structuralism is better suited for system-building. It is the foundation of every academic discipline. And as we watch computers, AI, the internet, and social media develop explosively and spread universally throughout society, it's hard not to feel humbled, to realize that anthropocentrism is over in a practical sense, and that we must stop overestimating ourselves. All of these—computers, AI, the internet, social media—are the offspring of structuralism. Structuralism is Revolutionary; Post-structuralism, Not So Much Structuralism is a revolutionary idea. Though structuralist-like thoughts have existed in every era, it was modern mathematics that first purely extracted it. (In truth, the Buddha or Nāgārjuna came first, but we'll set that aside for now.) Pure structuralism is a disruptive innovation. Its practicality is on another level. Philosophically, it can serve as a complete alternative to realism in epistemology and ontology. Scientifically, it can be the foundation of all academic disciplines. Its industrial and economic foundation is evident in the current frenzy of AI investment—it's easy to see what an incredible future awaits. Its practicality is so immense that it has become the bedrock of modern society. But beyond its utility, it can philosophically serve as a complete foundational theory for epistemology and ontology, replacing realism. On the other hand, the relativism of post-structuralism and the Buddhist Madhyamaka/Middle Way are kind of like saying, "Hey, both realism and structuralism can be valid and coexist, so let's all just get along." That both can be independently valid might be the discovery of post-structuralism, but one could also say it's not a very significant discovery. It's a rather small finding; perhaps it wasn't even a discovery at all, but something sharp minds knew from the start. This is where post-structuralism gets fuzzy. There's no debate about who discovered or invented post-structuralism. The same is true for Buddhism. The Buddha was deeply moved when he discovered Dependent Origination (Pratītyasamutpāda), thinking it was enlightenment itself, the truth. But regarding the Middle Way, there seem to be no records of a particular discovery,感動, or episode. This might be why Buddhism is often misunderstood as a philosophy of Emptiness (Śūnyatā) rather than a philosophy of the Middle Way. Nāgārjuna, in contrast, is more strategic. He places Madhyamaka (the Middle View) at the center. Emptiness remains important, but he warns against attachment to it, calling it kūshū (attachment to emptiness). Nāgārjuna says, "Emptiness is merely a medicine." It's a medicine to cure those who can only understand and cling to realism. The framework is that once the illness of clinging to realism is cured with the medicine of Emptiness, the true goal is Madhyamaka. In that sense, the Western post-structuralists, who left behind only a fuzzy version of this Middle View, are inferior as thinkers to Nāgārjuna. At the same time, one could also see them as superior to Nāgārjuna for having deliberately left this point ambiguous. However, it's probably better to think of Nāgārjuna not as an individual but as a representative of the people around him and the intellectual climate of his time. Madhyamaka and Relativism are Amazing, But… To put Madhyamaka and relativism in a single phrase from today’s lexicon, it would be DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion). Not for people in society, but for the ideas within an individual's mind. It's the idea of "respecting the diversity of various thoughts, treating them equally, and incorporating them." However, while that may be fine for people, ideas don't necessarily need to be treated as equals. There should be room for various opinions like, "I don't like this idea, so I won't adopt it," or "I'm going with this single ideology, so others are a lower priority." In fact, that approach, while perhaps not DEI, allows us to protect the crucial value of "freedom." Post-structuralism and the Middle Way are Metacognition Post-structuralism and the Middle Way are ideas that tell us to possess metacognition. When you adopt relativism instead of absolutism, metacognition is automatically extracted and appears naturally. Metacognition is "cognizing cognition." It's the awareness that, "I am thinking and acting according to this particular ideology." It is to recognize that "there is a whole, there are others (not necessarily people), there is myself, and there is an outside." Based on that premise, you can absolutize something, or you can relativize both others and yourself. Having metacognition is not necessarily a good thing. There are cases where you'd be better off not knowing. In Zen, there's a saying, "Be the master wherever you are," but there's also the phrase, "the comfort of a slave." There are many cases where one can live more happily without metacognition or a sense of self-awareness. Like Japan during the Edo period or Bhutan, a closed country might lead to a higher level of happiness for its citizens. Moreover, there are cases where one simply cannot have metacognition. An obvious example is individuals with severe or moderate intellectual disabilities, who may not have the cognitive capacity for it. Also, certain mental illnesses, like schizophrenia, involve impaired metacognition. Clinically, this is sometimes referred to as a "lack of insight." It's a state where one "cannot grasp from an objective viewpoint that one is saying or doing strange things." Conversely, one could say that "because there is no (or diminished) metacognition, because one cannot see oneself objectively, one says or does strange things to others." This is not to say that severe intellectual disability or certain mental illnesses are bad; they are just another way of being human. In fact, modern philosophy has aspects that were born from psychopathology and psychoanalysis. From a psychopathological perspective, a "lack of insight" is not a bad thing; it can be a "good thing that stabilizes symptoms or the condition," or it can even "work towards healing the disease." Conversely, there's a phenomenon called "late remission," where insight is gained or symptoms lighten in later life. In the past, it was said that one had to be careful about suicide in such cases. In any case, metacognition is tiring. It's not suited for constant operation. Normal people have various modes of thought and personas, and they switch between them automatically depending on the situation. For ordinary people, memory connects everything, so there's no problem, but in dissociative disorders where memory is impaired, it can manifest as multiple personalities. It's often easier to have these modes switch automatically rather than having to return to a main screen to select one. Nietzsche and Heidegger criticized living this way without much self-awareness as being part of "the herd" or "falling," but living conformistly without individuality has its easy-going merits compared to a life that only pushes for originality. Post-structuralism and the Middle Way are Only about Application Both post-structuralism and Madhyamaka/the Middle Way are certain ways of knowing, but they don't use a new epistemology. They are merely policies for how to build and operate systems using realism or structuralism; they don't create anything revolutionary. For simple relativism, you don't even need complicated philosophical debates about structuralism or realism. Many people probably practice it naturally without being taught. Anyone who knows Galileo's or Newton's concepts of relativity in physics can quickly understand what relativism is by analogy. After all, the relativistic model of post-structuralism and the Middle Way/Madhyamaka can be constructed upon either realism or structuralism, so they are, in a sense, mere applications. On top of that, inserting a moralistic "you should do this," like in DEI, is questionable. The problem with morality is that it's a kind of groundless imposition. Ultimately, regardless of epistemology or ontology, regardless of post-structuralist relativism or Madhyamaka, we must think, judge, decide, and act in each moment. Sometimes, we have to take responsibility for the consequences of our actions—or, as they say in the Kansai dialect, "wipe our own ass." Nietzsche's practical morality would be to be an Übermensch; Sartre himself chose the life of a communist activist within freedom. Even if we don't choose, we have to think or act every day. Even if we are not autonomous, even if we are just going with the flow or conforming without individuality, we are doing something at every moment. It might be purer for philosophy to remain in the realm of pure reason and not speak of practical reason (morality and ethics) or judgment (values). In the world of freedom opened up by Nietzsche and other great predecessors, ethics and morality—no matter what they are, whether directed at oneself or others—are a kind of imposition. And since Nietzsche, morality and ethics are arbitrary. To impose something arbitrary or convenient for someone else upon oneself or others is, if not a sacrilege against autonomy and self-awareness, at least a lack of respect. Conclusion: Humans are Free Humans are free. Therefore, you do not need to adopt the relativism of post-structuralism or the Buddhist Middle Way. Depending on your perspective—or perhaps regardless of it—they are an imposing ethical and moral theory. You don't need them, but it's useful to know about them. They are incredibly convenient, so I recommend understanding them as just one way of thinking and then using them as needed.

現代哲学（思想）のポスト構造主義と仏教の中観（中道）の倫理と道徳の課題 ・ポスト構造主義や中道、中観には突っ込みどころがある

現代哲学（思想）のポスト構造主義と仏教の中観（中道）の倫理と道徳の課題 ・ポスト構造主義や中道、中観には突っ込みどころがある 　現代哲学とかそれと同じ本質を持つ大乗仏教を分かりやすく解説しようとするときに哲学の目から見ると少し誤魔化しのところがあります。 　ここをごまかしているので現代哲学は現代哲学というより現代思想と呼ばれるのかもしれず、仏教は哲学ではなく宗教になっているのかもしれません。 　簡単に言うと哲学は存在論や認識論など本質的な問題だけ扱っていればいいのかもしれないのに、ポスト構造主義の相対主義や中道や中観では人にある生き方を勧めるようなところがあるという事です。 　つまり倫理や道徳が入り込んでいます。 　「こういう風に生きたり考えたり行動した方がいいよ」みたいな感じです。 　これははっきり言って余計なお世話です。 　カントを勉強した人なら純粋理性批判には感動しても実践理性批判とか判断力批判には納得できなかった記憶があるのではないでしょうか。 　実践理性批判は道徳や倫理を扱ったものです。 　誤解を恐れずに書くと「～であるべきである」「～すべきである」についての本ですが現代人には余計なお世話というかカントの著作の蛇足みたいな感じがするかもしれません。 　我々は脱宗教的な時代傾向の中でニーチェの洗礼もサルトルの洗礼も受けているニヒリズムと自由の刑の世界に生きているのでせっかく手に入れた自由を束縛する「こうしなさい」みたいな根拠もなく口うるさいお母さんみたいな説教はいらないという人が多いかもしれません。 　「ニヒリズム」とか「自由の刑」とかいうとネガティブな語感があるかもしれませんがまあいったん自由はいいものとしておきましょう。 　せっかく自由を獲得したのに自由を制限するというのは嫌な感じです。 　その説教臭い押し付けをポスト構造主義の相対主義と仏教の中道や中観はしているようなところがあります。 ・20世紀人類の最大の発明 　20世紀の最大の発明は、といっても19世紀末にはすでにあったのかもしれませんし、2600年前の仏教がすでに同じことを言っていますが―、は自由と構造主義です。 　最大の発明と言っておいて2つ挙げるのは語義矛盾かもしれませんがまあ細かいことは気にしないでおきましょう。 　自由についてはニーチェやサルトル他の哲学者が開いた道とみていいかもしれません。 　構造主義は数学で生まれましたが同時多発で言語学でも生まれその他の領域に広まって20世紀半ばには爆発的に拡散しました。 　現代社会の基礎は構造主義です。 　実在論でも構造主義でも不自然で直観に反する現象はいろいろ起こりますがシステムづくりには構造主義が向いています。 　各学問の基礎は構造主義ですし、今はコンピュータが爆発的な発展を遂げて社会に遍く汎用的に広がっていく様を見ていくと人間中心主義は現実的な意味でも終わったなとか人間の過大評価はやめなあかんなと謙虚な気分になりますがそのコンピュータなりAIなりインターネットなりSNSなりは構造主義の申し子です。 ・構造主義は革命的、ポスト構造主義はそうでもない 　構造主義は革新的な思想です。 　構造主義的な思想はいつの時代にもありましたが純粋な構造主義を抽出できたのは現代数学が初めてです。 　本当は仏教のお釈迦様なりナーガールジュナ（龍樹）なりがさきですがここではおいておきます。 　純粋な構造主義は破壊的なイノベーションです。 　実用性が段違いです。 　哲学的には実在論の完全なだいたいになりえます。 　科学的には全ての学問の基礎になりえます。 　産業、経済的な基礎も今のAI投資を見ればどれだけすごい未来が待っているかはわかるでしょう。 　そんなこんなで現代社会の基盤になるほどの実用性です。 　実用性はいいのですが哲学的には認識論と構造論の実在論に代わる完全な基礎理論になりえます。 　他方ポスト構造主義の相対主義や仏教の中観や中道は「実在論も構造主義もどっちも成り立つし共存できるから仲良くしていきましょうや」みたいな感じです。 　どっちも独立で成り立つというのはポスト構造主義の発見だったかもしれませんがたいした発見ではないとも言えます。 　むしろ小さな発見ですし、発見ですらなく鋭い人なら最初から分かっていたかもしれません。 　ここら辺がポスト構造主義がもやっとするところです。 　ポスト構造主義の発見者、発明者は誰だという議論にはなりません。 　これは仏教もそうです。 　お釈迦様は縁起（十二因縁生起）を発見したときはこれで悟った、真でもいいというほどに感激したものですが、中道については特に発見の経緯や感動やエピソードなど伝わっていないのではないでしょうか。 　ここら辺が仏教が空の思想であって中道の思想ではないと誤解されやすい原因かもしれません。 　それに対して龍樹（ナーガールジュナ）はもっと戦略的です。 　中観を中心に据えています。 　空は大切なのは変わりませんが空にこだわるのを空執として戒めています。 「空は薬に過ぎない」とナーガールジュナは言っています。 実在論しか理解できず実在論だけに執着する人を治すための薬と言っています。 空という薬を使って実在論の思い込みという病気を治したら本当に目指すべきは中観であるという建付けです。 　そういう意味では中観的な物をもやっとしてしか残せなかった西洋のポスト構造主義者たちは思想家としてナーガールジュナより格下です。 　と同時にあえてここをあいまいにしたポスト構造主義者たちはナーガールジュナより格上だったとも見ることもできます。 　ただ実際はナーガールジュナという個人よりはナーガールジュナとその周辺とその時代の周辺にいた人々の代表としてナーガールジュナを考えた方がいいでしょう。 ・中観や相対主義はすごいのだが・・・ 　中観や相対主義を一言でいうと現在の言葉ではDEIです。 　社会的な人間に関してではなく個人の内面の思想に関してですが、 「いろいろな思想の多様性を尊重して平等に扱い、吸収して活用していく」 という考え方でしょうか。 　ただ人間に対してはそれでいいのかもしれませんが、思想に関しては人間のように平等である必要はないでしょう。 　「俺はこの思想は嫌だから採用しない」、とか「私はこの思想一本でいくので他の思想の優先順位は下」だとかいろんない意見があってもいいです。 　というかその方がDEIではないかもしれませんが大切な「自由」を守ることができます。 ・ポスト構造主義や中道はメタ認知 　ポスト構造主義や中道はメタ認知を持て、という考え方です。 　絶対主義でなく相対主義だとメタ認知は勝手に抽出されてきますので自然に現れます。 　メタ認知は「認知を認知する」ということです。 　「自分はこの思想にしたがって思考して行動している」 というのを自覚することです。 　「全体があって他者（人とは限らない）があって自分もあって外部がある」という事を認識することです。 　それを前提に何かを絶対化してもいいし他社も自分も相対化するのもありです。 　メタ認知を持つことがいいこととは限りません。 　そんなの知らない方がよかったという場合もあるでしょう。 　禅では「随処で主となれ」という言葉ありますが「奴隷の安逸」ということばもあります。 　メタ認知なんか持たず主体性や自覚なんかも持たない方が幸せに生きていける場合も多いでしょう。 　江戸時代の日本やブータンのように鎖国していた方が国民の幸福度も高いかもしれません。 　そもそもメタ認知を持てない場合もあります。 　分かりやすいのはどの程度のIQからかわかりませんが重度や中等度くらいの知的障害がある場合にはメタ認知は持つ知能まで達しない可能性があります。 　またある種の精神病、統合失調症のような病気はメタ認知障害が生じます。 　臨床的には病識、病感の欠如とか言う言葉が使われたりします。 　「自分がへんなこと、おかしなことを言ったりしているというのを客観的な視点でとらえることができない」という状態です。 　反対の言い換えもできて「メタ認知がない（低下している）、自分を客観的にみれなくなるから他の人に変な事、おかしな事を言ったりしたりしている」という見方ができます。 　だから重度以上の知的障害やある種の精神疾患はだめなんだという事ではなく、これはこれで、人間の在り方としてありだという事です。 　そもそも現代哲学は統合失調症などの精神病理学や精神分析学から生まれた側面があります。 　精神病理学的に言えば「病識のなさ」は悪いことではなく「症状や状態を安定させるいいこと」あるいは「疾患治癒的に働くもの」である可能性もあります。 　逆に晩期緩解といって晩年に病識ついたり症状が軽くなったりする時があるのですが昔はそういう時は自殺に注意しないといけないと言われていました。 　そもそもメタ認知は疲れます。 常時働かせておくのに向いてません。 　普通の人はいろいろな思考のモードやペルソナを持っていて場面場面で勝手に切り替えて生きています。 　普通の人は記憶でつながっているので問題ないですが記憶に障害が出る解離性障害では多重人格のような形で現れます。 　いちいちメイン画面に戻って選択するよりは自動で切り替わってくれた方が楽なのでそれでいい場合も多いです。 あまり自覚なくそういう風に生きていくのをニーチェやハイデガーは畜群とか頽落とか世人とか批判しましたが無個性同調的に生きていけるあり方も個性や独創ばかり推すあり方よりは気楽でいい面もあります。 ・ポスト構造主義も中道、中観も運用上の問題だけ 　ポスト構造主義も中観も中道もある種の認識の在り方ですが、新しい認識論を使っているわけではなく実在論や構造主義を使ったシステムの作り方や運用方針だけのことで画期的な新しい何かを作っているわけではありません。 　単に相対主義なら構造主義とか実在論とか小難しい哲学の議論すら必要ありません。 　誰に習うともなく自然に実践している人も多いのではないでしょうか？ 　そもそも物理でガリレオやニュートンの相対論を知っている人であればすぐにアナロジーで相対論とは何かを理解できるでしょう。 　そもそもポスト構造主義の相対主義モデルも中道も中観論も実在論の上でも構造主義の上でも構築できるので応用に過ぎないといえば過ぎません。 　その上DEIみたいに「こうするべし」みたいな道徳みたいなのを入れるのはどうかという事です。 　道徳の問題はある種の根拠のない押し付けであることです。 　結局認識論や存在論がどうであれポスト構造主義の相対主義や中観や中道がどうであれ我々はその時その時で考えて判断して決断して行動しないといけません。 　場合によっては行動の結果の責任を取るというか、関西弁で言うとけつをとる場合もあります。 　ニーチェだったら実践道徳としては超人であれですし、サルトル自身は自由の中で共産主義の活動家としての生き方を選んでいます。 　選ばなくても我々は日々何か考えたり行動したりしなければいけないので、主体的でなくともたとえ何かに流されたり主体性なく没個性的に同調したりするだけのようなかたちであってもその瞬間瞬間で何かをやっているわけです。 　純粋理性に留めて、実践理性（道徳や倫理）や判断力（価値観）について語らない方が哲学としては純粋かもしれません。 　倫理や道徳はニーチェやその他の偉大な先人が切り開いた自由の世界の中ではどんなものであれ、自分に向けられたものであれ人に向けられたものであれある種の押し付けです。 　しかも道徳や倫理はやはりニーチェだか誰か以降は恣意的なものです。 　恣意的だったり誰かにとって都合がいいものを自分であれ他人であれ押し付けることは主体性や自主性、主体の自覚への冒涜とまではいかなくても尊重や敬意が足りないと言わざるを得ません。 ・まとめ、人間は自由である 　人間は自由です。 　だからポスト構造主義の相対主義や中道や中観を採用する必要はありません。 　見方によっては、あるいは見方によらずとも押し付けの倫理・道徳論ですので。 　必要はないのですが知っとくと便利です。 　めちゃめちゃ便利なのでこういう考え方もあるのだなあと理解しておいて必要に応じて実際に使うような感じで付き合っていくことをお勧めします。

What Is Humanity? Underwater Archaeology Will Change Human History

What Is Humanity? Underwater Archaeology Will Change Human History The human history we read today may be an excerpt that omits the main stage now lying under the sea. During the Last Glacial Period (roughly 115,000–11,700 years ago), sea level fell by up to about 120 meters, exposing vast coastal plains such as Doggerland in the North Sea and Sundaland in Southeast Asia. Within the glacial period, stadials (colder phases) and interstadials (warmer phases) alternated in short cycles, so the zones suitable for human habitation repeatedly flipped south↔north and coast↔interior. —If so, relying only on the surviving land sites makes it easy to miss the mainstream of human history. As underwater archaeology advances, cases that have looked like “peripheral anomalies,” such as Jōmon sites in Japan or Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, will likely be repositioned as edges of a lost mainstream. Everything Important Lies Under the Sea In short, when thinking about human civilization, the most crucial traces from the Last Glacial Period are mostly under water (or, where preserved, beneath today’s deserts). To “overstate” the point on purpose: during the Ice Age, expansive land spread across habitable low– and mid–latitudes; areas now desert—like the Sahara—were green and are known as Green Sahara. In other words, it was a time quite favorable for human life. By contrast, in our present interglacial, land is relatively limited; deserts dominate around the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn; and the high latitudes’ permafrost make for an awkward, less hospitable world with a narrower human habitat—to put it bluntly. Therefore, we cannot understand (the crucial parts of) human history merely by studying the sites that remain on today’s land. As underwater archaeology develops, a fundamentally different view of human history will spread—perhaps a paradigm shift even larger than the one from “dinosaurs as oversized reptiles” to “dinosaurs were feathered.” For example, underwater archaeology is progressing in the English Channel (the Dover Strait)—no doubt aided by proximity to both Paris and London. As this work advances, exceptionally early-looking sites such as Japan’s Jōmon or Turkey’s Göbekli Tepe—sometimes treated like “OOPArts”—will instead look like special cases preserved because they sat on narrow ridges or hills that escaped submergence when sea level rose and deserts expanded, while the main Ice Age record was hidden or erased. To Know Ice Age Human History, We Need Seafloor Maps Today’s landforms are only today’s landforms. We often see maps forecasting coastlines under continued global warming. Likewise, to understand the Ice Age we need maps of the seafloor. At the coldest stage of the glacial, sea level stood more than 120 m lower than now; the seafloor down to that depth would have been dry land. Even in an Ice Age, the equatorial belt and low—indeed, even much of the mid—latitudes were not glacier-covered or utterly uninhabitable. Some regions now too hot or desertified may have been pleasantly mild then. When we look carefully and concretely—grounding our imagination in physical reality—our mental images can flip. Historiography often experiences such reversals (think of the Annales School in Europe; in Japan, the work of Amino Yoshihiko and Abe Kinya famously reframed common views). Human Civilization Is Compressed into the 10,000 Years Since the Last Glacial What we call “civilization” begins after the Last Glacial ended, as sea level rose with warming about 10,000 years ago. The continental shelves and shallow seafloors—prime Ice Age living space and corridors—are now beneath the sea. From that perspective, the sites we can study today lie in the periphery of the Ice Age human habitat. During the glacial, sea level fell and habitable low– and mid–latitude lands expanded; even deserts like the Sahara were green. We now live in an interglacial. “What is essential is invisible to the eye” (Saint-Exupéry). “We dwell within unseen structures” (Lévi-Strauss). Their original meanings may differ, but across anthropology, archaeology, and indeed all inquiry, humility about the unknown is crucial. To Understand Human History, the Ice Age Matters Modern science’s strength—evidence-based empiricism—is also its weakness when over-applied. In recent decades some have dismissed what lacks evidence as if it were disproven. Yet absence of evidence is not evidence of absence: in statistics, “no significant difference” means we cannot say, not that something is false. Fields like medicine have ethical barriers that long limited experimentation; the push for EBM sometimes caused confusion on the ground. Wittgenstein said, “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent,” but likewise: when we don’t know, we should resist easy denial and avoid clinging to an illusion of knowledge. Time Scales: Even 10,000 Years Isn’t Enough Older generations learned history starting from the “four great civilizations,” a text-based horizon. But to really grasp human history we must think on logarithmic scales: 100, 1,000, 10,000, 100,000 years. The last 10,000 years saw agriculture and writing after the Ice Age ended. Anatomically modern humans emerged in Africa about 300,000 years ago and began dispersing out of Africa around 50,000 years ago. From a Japanese vantage point—asking “What is humanity?”—we should look on 100,000-year horizons. As the 2022 Nobel Prize underscored, modern humans admixed with Neanderthals and Denisovans. Neanderthals lived roughly 400,000–40,000 years ago. Homo erectus in Java (“Java Man”) spans roughly 1.8 million to 200,000 years ago; whether they interbred with later humans is unknown, but at minimum their presence shows the human line had already spread globally in the earlier stages. Viewing Humans as a Biological Species If we view humans not as exceptional, but as organisms among organisms, ranges shift with time. The romantic “Great Journey” can make us forget that, before civilization, humans—though equipped with culture, language, and tools—were still biological populations responding to changing habitats. Seeing late Pleistocene humans in this biological frame reveals a different picture. Climate Change and Humanity For us modern humans, the Last Glacial Period is key—roughly 70,000 to 10,000 years ago in common parlance (more strictly, ~115,000–11,700 BP). Temperatures oscillated; within these 60,000+ years came the coldest stage, the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) around 26,500–19,000 years ago. At the coldest times, vast ice sheets spread across much of the Northern Hemisphere; sea level dropped ~120 m, exposing land bridges and enabling intercontinental movement. In Japan, mean annual temperature was about 7°C lower, pushing evergreen broadleaf forests southward. Mammals like Naumann’s elephant, giant deer, moose (and mammoths in Hokkaidō when it was connected to the continent) roamed. The Sea of Japan became more enclosed, almost lake-like. About 10,000 years ago, the glacial ended; rapid warming melted the ice, sea level rose, and today’s coastlines formed. In the Middle Jōmon (the mid-Holocene warm period), seas pushed far inland into lowlands like the Osaka and Kantō plains. Southern Corridors From a northern, Euro-American historical gaze, the Ice Age looks grim. But the south wasn’t necessarily so. The Sahara was green. Even at the LGM, low– to mid–latitude cooling averaged ~5.8°C, and Japan’s mean fell by ~7°C—serious, but not uniformly catastrophic. With sea level lower and continental shelves exposed down to ~120 m, land area was vastly larger than today. With water, coasts, and rich biota abundant, there was little need to push into extreme northern cold. If another glacial came, migrating south could even make Earth more livable for many. A Geophysical Perspective From 70,000 to 10,000 years ago, temperatures oscillated repeatedly. Though “out-of-Africa” is commonly dated to ~50,000 years ago, seafloor evidence might yet show earlier excursions beyond today’s Africa-as-land. The cutting edge in anthropology and archaeology is moving toward submerged traces. With each warm/cold swing, sea level and coastlines shifted again and again, expanding and shrinking land. Those lands are now beneath the sea—precisely the places that may have been most habitable. This helps re-think why Homo erectus remains turn up in places like Indonesia: through multiple glacials and interglacials, they simply lived and moved where life was good, and at times that included Java. Much of Southeast Asia, the Pacific archipelagos, Eurasian shelves, and the Australian shelf have had epochs as broad subaerial plains. The tropics were not ice-covered; regions prone to desert today—beneath the tropical belts—could be verdant in glacials (e.g., Green Sahara). The Waves of Ice-Age Temperature As noted, the Earth cycles between glacials and interglacials; within glacials, stadials (colder) and interstadials (warmer) alternate. That means habitable zones shifted many times. People—then as now—favor coasts, rivers, and lakes. Repeated cold/warm swings likely drove range shifts, with humans moving northward in warmer phases and southward in colder ones. Movement wasn’t one-way out of Africa; it could be pendular, to and fro, not only north–south but also east–west. Think of chemical equilibrium or steady states in physics: momentum carries populations back and forth. We often see neat arrows on maps (“reached region X by N thousand years ago”), but a thousand or ten thousand years is an awfully long time. To think clearly about ~50,000 years since the main out-of-Africa wave, we need a logarithmic sense of scale, not everyday yardsticks. Human generation times were short; people were active and mobile. It’s natural to expect rapid, expansive spread across easily traversed low– to mid–latitude belts. Surviving Ice-Age Sites Are Not the Main Body Empiricism demands archaeological and genetic evidence—but over-reliance blinds us to what’s hard to evidence. One could even call it Lao-Zhuang-like (Daoist) or structuralist: we are shaped by unseen structures. If the Ice Age’s principal living zones lie under water, then the sites that remain on land are those that met special conditions. Japan, for instance, preserves an extraordinary number of sites (notably Jōmon), a culture oddly between Paleolithic and Neolithic—polished stone tools without agriculture—that flourished. Why so many sites in Japan? Because places high enough yet near the sea can both access Ice Age coastal cultures and avoid submergence during later sea-level rise. Ridges and steep relief tend to survive as long, narrow islands—think the Japanese Archipelago, Java, the Andamans. Some high-latitude or high-altitude locales, seemingly harsh, might have had niche advantages. Environmental change always creates winners and losers; for some, staying put would have carried strong incentives. Civilization: Even If Submerged, Traces Remain From the Nile and Tigris–Euphrates to the Indus, Yangtze, and Yellow River, each delta opens onto broad shelves and shallow seas—lands in glacials, shifting repeatedly between land and sea. Humans favor coasts and river basins. We don’t fully know Ice-Age seafaring, but by the Jōmon it clearly existed. People must have lived closely tied to waters; even in the current interglacial, early civilizations used coasting and river travel. High-latitude interiors are generally harder living; while people certainly lived there at times, they likely weren’t the mainstream of Ice-Age cultures. Many great northern rivers in Russia reach the Arctic, yet no early urban “cradle” formed there. Meanwhile, multiple river-basin civilizations (beyond the old “four”) are now recognized; Yangtze civilizations are close to home for Japan. It’s more natural to see later navigation as inheriting Ice-Age techniques than as a fresh invention out of nowhere. In everyday speech, “logical” needn’t mean formal logic; and even formal logic comes in many systems. Over-insisting on one narrow “logical” lens can be as unbalanced as over-insisting on evidence alone. In any case, it’s not hard to see that low-latitude life in the Ice Age may well have been favorable. High Latitudes Weren’t Necessarily Bad While I have emphasized lower latitudes, high latitudes could also offer advantages—unique goods, hunting, fishing, gathering. Cold-weather adaptations are possible. If wide-ranging trade already existed, comparative advantage would support rich lifeways: furs, northern fauna, minerals, and other resources. Some species thrive only in the north; humans may likewise have specialized, and with tools, reshaped environments to fit them. Still, this essay’s purpose is to highlight the submerged mainstream, rather than visible northern land stories we already know. Of course there were many streams of human movement, and low latitudes also carried hazards (strong nature, pathogens, water quality). Jungle survival over long periods is notoriously hard (as veterans of WWII’s southern fronts testified). Humanity Moved Back and Forth Given stadials and interstadials, habitable zones drifted over long spans; humans likely shuttled north–south accordingly. Some groups surely stayed and endured colder swings. The popular image of a one-way westward spread is suspect. Follow the rivers linking coast and interior: when sea level rises, river mouths move inland; when it falls, they shift outward over land that is now sea. In glacials, these estuaries were population hubs and trade nodes, likely frontiers of culture and technology—just as ports form today. From such hubs at various river mouths, people and goods likely moved along coasts and inland waterways, and between estuaries—overland or by sea. This is a natural pattern that matches ordinary reasoning. The catch is simply that many of those hubs are now underwater. Whether for resources or for archaeology, the sea remains a vast frontier. The Value of Multiple Lenses Using multiple modes of thought is itself deconstruction. History is often seen through single ideologies. Over-reliance on empiricism, or on written sources alone; prewar emperor-centered narratives vs. postwar Marxist materialism in education; media that once praised the Cultural Revolution or the Great Leap Forward—all remind us how perspectives shift. In the end, there is no single, final “correct” history. (And to note: Foucault—often labeled post-structuralist—famously resisted fixed labels himself.) History changes; like a person, it lacks a static identity. Even within one mind, viewpoints shift with methods and moments. From messy social facts to technical limits and cognitive biases (our Ice-Age imagery, shifting coastlines, the texture of climate change, the non-uniformity of “Ice Age” or “Stone Age”), narratives are malleable. Going forward, the grand task is how we will investigate underwater archaeological and anthropological heritage.

What is Humanity: The True Story Sleeping on the Seafloor

What is Humanity: The True Story Sleeping on the Seafloor Prologue: The Lost Main Stage The human history we read may be an abridged version, missing its "main stage" which now lies submerged beneath the sea. The core of this essay rests on the following three perspectives: The main stage of human activity during the Ice Age was on the coastal plains that sank with rising sea levels (now the seabed). Therefore, terrestrial archaeological records are inherently biased. Human migration was not a one-way "Great Journey" but a dynamic, multi-directional flow, oscillating in response to climate change. The advancement of underwater archaeology will trigger a paradigm shift, fundamentally rewriting our understanding of human history. Just as the image of dinosaurs transformed from "giant reptiles" to "feathered ancestors of birds," the story of our own ancestors awaits its moment to emerge, in a completely new form, from beneath the waves. Chapter 1: Correctly Understanding the World of the Ice Age First, we must correctly understand the environment of the "Last Glacial Period," the stage upon which our story unfolds. Term Period (Approx.) Characteristics Last Glacial Period 115,000 - 11,700 years ago The last ice age when the entire planet cooled. Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) 26,500 - 19,000 years ago The coldest peak of the Last Glacial Period, when sea levels dropped by up to 120 meters. Interstadial Cycles of several thousand years A temporary warm period within the Ice Age. Stadial Cycles of several thousand years An especially cold period within the Ice Age. Google スプレッドシートにエクスポート The crucial point is that the Ice Age was not uniformly frigid. It was punctuated by waves of warming (interstadials) and cooling (stadials) over thousands of years, causing the most habitable places for humanity to constantly shift. Chapter 2: The Most Important Things Are, Truly, in the Sea The Lost Continents During the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), the sea level was over 120 meters lower than it is today. This exposed vast areas of the continental shelf as dry land. Sundaland: A massive landmass that connected the islands of Southeast Asia to the mainland. Doggerland: A fertile plain in the North Sea that connected Great Britain to continental Europe. It is highly probable that these regions, with their rivers and abundant flora and fauna, were the most desirable "prime real estate" for humankind. The terrestrial sites we find today may be nothing more than the traces of settlements in the "highlands" or "fringes" of that vast, lost world. Reversing Common Sense The image of the Ice Age as a "cold and miserable" time is a view biased toward high-latitude regions. In the low and mid-latitudes, the situation was completely different. The Green Sahara: What is now the Sahara Desert was, at times, a lush savanna with extensive lakes and rivers (the African Humid Period). A C Milder Climate: Even during the LGM, the temperature drop in the low to mid-latitudes was only about 5.8°C on average. It's even possible that the climate was more pleasant than the scorching heat of today's tropics. Therefore, we should reframe the Ice Age not as an "era of hardship" for humanity, but rather as an "era when a vast and rich living space, much larger than today's, was available." Chapter 3: Humanity Was Constantly "Coming and Going" The narrative of the "Great Journey" from Africa to the rest of the world is an oversimplification. Human movement was far more dynamic and bidirectional. The Climate Pendulum The repeated cycle of stadials (cooling) and interstadials (warming) caused the habitable zones for humans to shift periodically. During warm periods, populations expanded from south to north and from coastal areas to the interior. During cold periods, populations contracted back from north to south and from the interior to warmer coastal refuges. Rather than a linear progression, it is more natural to think of human dispersal as a pendulum-like oscillation, with populations moving back and forth between north and south, and east and west, for tens of thousands of years. The Scale of Time We cannot intuitively grasp a span of "50,000 years." The arrows on migration maps, showing "humans reached Point X, Y years ago," compress thousands of years into a single point in space. If a generation was 15 to 20 years, then 50,000 years saw more than 2,500 generations. It was a matter of course for humanity to make countless round trips, riding the waves of climate change, during that immense period. Chapter 4: The True Meaning of the Remaining Ruins So, what is the significance of the sites we have found, like Göbekli Tepe in Turkey or the countless Jomon sites in Japan? These are not "out-of-place artifacts," but rather incredibly precious evidence left on the "fringes" of a lost world. Why Are They There?: Places like the Japanese archipelago or the island of Java are, topographically, the "mountain ridges" of sunken continents that remained above water after sea levels rose. This is precisely why traces were more likely to survive there. Preserved Because They Were "Peripheral": Cultural centers are often overwritten by new cultures in later eras. In contrast, peripheral areas or refuges are where older cultures are more easily preserved. The "civilizations" that emerged after the agricultural revolution did not start from scratch. They may have been a form of "palimpsest," written over a foundation of inherited cultures and technologies—including advanced seafaring skills—that had been cultivated during the Ice Age and were likely far more sophisticated than we can imagine. Conclusion: The Humility to Know History The strength of modern science lies in positivism. Its weakness, however, is the tendency to assume that what lacks evidence does not exist. Ludwig Wittgenstein said, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." In human history, the parts submerged beneath the sea are precisely those things "whereof we cannot speak." We must be humble in the face of what we do not know. History is not a single, fixed narrative. As Foucault suggested, it is constantly being rewritten depending on the era and perspective. Today, we have acquired a new pen called underwater archaeology. We are standing at the threshold of a magnificent era, one in which we will finally add the lost chapters to the grand story of humanity.