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There are many idiots in Japan who say, "Right wing and left wing are old-fashioned nowadays". Let's listen to those who say such things, then, and ask them what exactly they are claiming. If they have no complaints about the status quo, then that's a different story, but if they don't, then they "only" have the same arguments as those of the right and left so far, and we can declare them to be idiots. People who have no complaints about the status quo would never bother to discuss the left or right in the first place. Thus, they are simply unaware of whether they are right-wing or left-wing, and because they are unaware, they are stupid. The conflict between right and left arose with the establishment of modern society through the Puritan Revolution, the Honor Revolution, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Meiji Restoration, and other civil revolutions. As long as we are still within the framework of modern society, the conflict between the left and the right also continues to exist. Assuming the obvious fact that the conflict between right and left still exists, however, I would like to present a new point of view. The left-right opposition scheme has so far been realized as something that can be displayed by a single straight line. It is as if a long straight line is drawn from left to right, with the current administration in the middle, and the left and right are playing a tug-of-war to bring it into their own hands while criticizing it from the right and left, respectively. Of course, as a result of that tug-of-war, the administration at any given time may lean to the right or to the left. Nationalism, militarism, communism, anarchism, democracy or liberalism, or feudalism, fascism, etc., can all be placed somewhere along this straight line. But let us present a completely new picture that explains the left-right conflict. Draw a vertical and horizontal axis. This would naturally create four regions: upper left, upper right, lower left, and lower right. The lower right shall be the current administration. The lower left shall be the left wing as conventionally referred to. The upper right shall be the right wing as conventionally referred to. The upper left corner is assumed to be X for now.
There are many possible explanations for what the vertical and horizontal axes that form the four regions mean, but let's start with words that may be as easy to grasp as possible. The vertical axis indicates whether spiritual or material values are more important. The horizontal axis indicates whether sensitivity or reason is more important. The way to see the figure should be obvious. The current administration of the lower right can be considered, well, representative of the values of modern capitalism. The traditional right wing has criticized it as destroying the unique spiritual culture of each ethnic group. Modern capitalism destroys traditional communities. The right wing calls such things as materialism. However, the right wing has no logic. There is a semblance of logic, but the logic is not thoroughly explored. Once it would be done, the right wing would cease to be the right wing. The reasons for this need not be detailed if you recall religion, which is the most important aspect of "the unique spiritual culture of each ethnic group". Because religion is not logic. In the absence of logic, the right wing has much in common with the administration of the time. The intent of the administration is always to maintain the status quo, and those who are comfortable with the status quo have no need for reason by nature. The traditional left has criticized the current administration on the grounds that the modern values found in the process of the civil revolution, namely democracy, have not yet been fully realized. The left never denies the civil revolution itself. The left's criticism of the civil revolution is directed solely at its inadequacy. The civil revolution happened almost randomly and opportunistically, but the left extracted certain values from it and made them into ideals. Then, based on that ideological system, they try to transform society's reality. Recalling that Marxism, the champion of leftist thought, calls itself "scientific" socialism and also "materialism", it would be natural that the conventional left would be placed in the lower left in this figure. So what is X? According to the figure, X is a position that criticizes the materialistic aspects of the traditional left wing and at the same time criticizes the lack of logic of the right wing. You can call it spiritualistic left-wing, or you can call it reasoned right-wing. It seems that they share nothing of value with the administration of modern capitalism, and perhaps they are in no position to do anything other than to recognize each other as utterly incompatible enemies. We could temporarily call X anarchism. Many commentators have pointed out that the "new" leftist movement that was the basis for the worldwide explosion of Student Power in the 1960s was in fact a movement of anarchism disguised as Marxism. They criticized the old Marxism, often from existentialist perspectives. In Marxism, individuals must be grasped as pawns to be discarded in the "historical inevitability" of the proletarian revolution. There is no room, at least in the Marxist system, for such arguments as "How should this I live?" Because the proletarian revolution will "inevitably" take place regardless of the will and desire of "this I". Marxism is truly "materialist" and virtually ignores the will and subjectivity, or "spirit", of individuals. The superstructure (spirit) is determined by the substructure (material), as they say. Marxism was so perfect a system of thought that even the activists of the "new" left, who criticized it, were half persuaded by it, and so, although they called themselves Marxists and made a tearful effort to pepper their work with Marxist terminology, in reality they were advocating anarchism. There also seems to be some resonance between anarchism and right-wing ideology. Critics such as KARATANI Kojin and FUKUDA Kazuya have even said that anarchism is essentially a right-wing ideology. Karatani says it that way, as a (possibly) abusive remark because he is left-wing, and Fukuda says it that way, as a positive remark because he is right-wing. But of course, right-wing ideology and anarchism are two different ideas. To a Marxist, anarchism would appear as if it were a right-wing ideology. On the scheme we present, anarchism can be placed in the independent region of X, but the traditional single straight line image cannot define a unique position for it, and as a result, Marxists prefer to place anarchism to the right of themselves and anarchists themselves to the left of Marxists. To the right wing, anarchists would be a mysterious. MISHIMA Yukio sent a passionate love call to the students of Zenkyoto (the new-left movement of 1968 in Japan), but it ended in unrequited love. SUZUKI Kunio, a new rightist, wrote a book titled "New-Left , Go for It!", and now seems to have been almost completely taken in and conveniently used by the left wing. Even before World War II, among the leftists, only the anarchist OSUGI Sakae was loved by the right wing. For the right wing, anarchists are an enigmatic force that is perhaps their enemy, but which they cannot completely deny because they seem to have something in common with the right wing. However, this is also an "enigma" that arises because the figure is drawn in the mind as a single straight line, not as a four-quadrant diagram. So then, are we anarchists for saying such a thing? You may say so. However, there is a reservation. Indeed, we openly declare that we place ourselves in the region of X. But is it equal to the declaration "we are anarchists"? To draw the four-quadrant diagram, we used vertical and horizontal axes. But in our view, this vertical and horizontal axis are not drawn with the same thickness. In conclusion, during the Cold War, the vertical axis stood tall as a wall, completely dividing the left and right sides. During the Cold War, there were many occasions when the right wing was used by the government as a cadre to suppress the left wing. Anarchists in the X region also made the mistake of fighting together with Marxists in the lower left region. Not only armed conflicts between "new" leftist organizations, but also between "old" and "new" leftists were called (in Japan) "internal" conflicts. Many critics of the "internal" struggle said it would benefit the "true enemy". The "true enemy" meant, of course, the "other side" across the vertical axis. And now we think that the horizontal axis stands tall as a wall, completely dividing the upper and lower sides. The confrontation between the two forces across the horizontal axis, it is the true nature of "a whole new war". In this confrontation scheme, the conflict between the "pro-war" faction on the lower right and the "anti-war" faction on the lower left concerning the "wars" in Afghanistan and Iraq is merely an "internal conflict", so to speak. The true war is being waged against the enemy on the "other side" across the horizontal axis, i.e., us, by the collusion of the lower right and the lower left. Over a period of about a decade from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, the rewriting of the main axis of conflict from vertical to horizontal progressed slowly but irreversibly. In short, this was the essence of the phenomenon known as the "end of the Cold War". Those who place themselves in the upper-right region should now consider themselves forsaken by the current administration. Any administration always needs some kind of "justice" in order to sustain itself. But justice does not come from the lower right area. This is because what those who place themselves in the lower-right area have is merely a thoughtless affirmation of the status quo. So the Cold War regime (in the "West", of course), by holding hands with those on the upper right, stockpiled the "justice" needed to justify the regime. An obvious example was the emphasis on "patriotism". Of course, there are remnants of that today. There are still some people within the administration who exhibit right-wing behavior to some extent, including Prime Minister KOIZUMI himself. But the tide is decisively turning. To take an obvious example, the so-called "apology diplomacy" to "neighboring Asian countries" will no longer be reversed as the rule (unless our revolution is achieved). The regime has already made handshakes with those on the lower left as new stockpiles of "justice". The inevitable consequences of this are a "gender-equal society", "barrier-free", "human rights for crime victims", various "earth-friendly" measures, persecution of smokers, ...... and many other "whole new war" policies are being promoted. "Self-determination" and "self-responsibility" were also originally slogans of the left. The kind of justice that the people on the lower left stand for is simply the kind of justice that is called "PC". This is also the case with the movement to crack down on "extreme rap" lyrics that "have a negative impact on youth", as well as the movement to make "child pornography" a criminal offense (whether it is good or bad). The "youth protection ordinances" are now justified not on right-wing grounds, such as upholding sexual morality, but on left-wing grounds, such as protecting "the human rights of children (especially girls)". The same applies, of course, to the late-night ban on cigarette and liquor vending machines, the rule to use only transparent bags for garbage so that people can monitor each other to make sure they are separating garbage properly, the active intervention of the police in various disputes that were once considered commonplace problems between men and women, naming them "domestic violence" or "stalking", and the series of measures mentioned above, including "gender equality" and "barrier-free access". Another thing we must not forget is the fact that state power now has various high-technology tools available to monitor and control individuals. We leave the details to "The Internal Clash of Civilizations" by Osawa, however, this policy of using high technology to raise the level of security is not inconsistent with left-wing political correctness, in fact, it is very much in line with it. Simply put, if they want to increase the level of security with due regard to political correctness, they will have to rely on high-technology. We must resist the realization of a whole new Stalinist system, based on the collusion of left-wing forces promoting PC sociaty and state power that has gained high-tech to monitor and control individuals, and we must stand up to the struggle to stop and crush this system. Stalinism can be understood as a system that unites left-wing justice with state power. What they are trying to achieve by winning "a whole new war", so to speak, is a "whole new Stalinist regime". It is a further sophisticated version of the image of a dark future society foreseen by George Orwell in "1984". As things stand, the "whole new war" is being waged under the overwhelming dominance of the allied forces of the lower-right and lower-left. We have currently been left with a one-sided beatdown. This is because, first, the true confrontation in the war had not been visualized until we presented it here, and second, as a natural consequence of this, the coalition forces of the upper-right and upper-left, which are necessary to effectively counterattack the enemy's attack, have not been formed at all. Yes, we, the forces who place ourselves in the area of the upper-left, must seek solidarity with the right-wing forces on the upper-right. And that is not impossible. Can you now dimly imagine why we had reservations about defining ourselves as "anarchists" previously? We are the X who places ourselves in the upper-left area in that four-quadrant diagram. When the vertical axis stands tall as a wall, being in solidarity with the left-wing forces on the lower-left, X is called "anarchism". In times like the present, when the horizontal axis stands tall as a wall, solidarity with right-wing forces on the upper-right inevitably pursued, X is perhaps called "fascism". (Appendix 1) (Appendix 2) (Appendix 3) (Appendix 4) |
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