自然に対する日本のデュアル価値観:その両面性を受ける Japan's Dualistic View of Nature: Accepting Both Sides of the Same Coin 

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頭を探しに森を食い尽くすシシガミ(もののけ姫)

Shishigami devouring the forest in search of his head (Princess Mononoke)

 

2014年9月末に御嶽山の噴火のニュース報道を見て、自然が突如に「鬼の面」を表す瞬間を描く生存者の話を聞いたとき、東日本大震災の一周年の記念で放送した特集に登場した梅原猛の話を思い出しまた。仏教伝来を遥かに遡った古から日本列島で育まれた「神道」は自然の両面を崇拝すると同時に警戒していました。自然の恐ろしさに捧げ物することによって、恐ろしい自然を恵みの自然に変えていく。自然は一面怖い暴君の恐ろしさを持つと同時に、一面慈母のような優しい面を持ちます。梅原先生の話を簡単に要約しますと、神道は自然と人間を分けず、そのデュアルの価値観を大切にしています。

 

When I watched the news reports on the eruption of Mt. Ontake at the end of September 2014, the survivor’s harrowing accounts of how Mother Nature suddenly reared its “demonic side” reminded me of a special documentary made a year after the Great East Japan Earthquake. This documentary featured the Japanese scholar Takashi Umehara, and during the course of the program he described how long before Buddhism came to Japan, the people of these islands both revered and feared the two faces of nature through Shinto. Within Shinto, people gave offerings in an effort to appease the fearsome side of nature and transform this power into a source of bounty and blessing. Shinto essentially acknowledges that nature is both an awful tyrant and charitable mother figure. Based on this understanding, Umehara argued that Shinto does not distinguish between nature and man, but rather emphasizes a dualistic view that brings the two together.

 

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旅順攻囲戦 (日露戦争1904-05)

Siege of Port Arthur (Russo-Japan War 1904-05)

出所: JACAR

Source: JACAR

 

火の輪が生み出した列島に身を寄せた民族が絞り出したこの智恵であり、それは必然な結果であろうと思います。従って、そのデュアル価値観に基づいた「自然との共存」を目指したではないかと思います。「共存」は「共に存在する」を意味とし、それは まさにデュアルの意味でもあります。梅原氏によりますと、その二面は西洋文明が忘れていました。西洋文明は人間中心主義で、それは科学技術文明を生み出しました。人間中心主義に基づいて成り立ったこの科学技術文明から見ますと、自然は人間の役に立つものとしか捉えないし、その結果この文明が生み出す「文明の利器」を利用して自然を好きのように制御しようとします。明治に開国して富国強兵(いわゆる “大日本主義”)で突っ走った日本もこの西洋文明を取り入れて、そのお土産として科学技 術文明を頂きました。確かに国がより豊にしましたが、その文明が要する資源は日本が乏しく、それを手に入れるために国外へ目を向かざるを得なかったです。結局、それは日清戦争日露戦争日韓併合満州建国への道に繋がります。

 

It seems to me that this approach was the source of wisdom and inevitable outcome arrived at by the peoples who came to these islands created by the Ring of Fire. That’s probably why they sought to live based on a dualistic view that stressed “living in harmony with nature”. The Japanese word kyōzon (共存, coexistence) is simply an abbreviated form of the phrase tomo ni sonzai suru (共に存在する, co-existing together), and is a perfect representation of this dualism. Umehara claims that the dualistic view stressed by Shinto is something the West has forgotten. Western culture is first and foremost human-centric, and this human-first approach is what gave rise to a culture founded upon science and technology. This kind of culture views nature only as a means for serving the needs of humanity, and as a result many of the “modern conveniences” this culture produces are designed to enable humanity to control nature as it sees fit. Japan incorporated this Western culture after it opened up to the West in the Meiji era (1868-1912) and plunged headlong into its quest to build a “rich country under a strong military” (the so-called “Big Japan” vision). In taking on elements of Western culture, it also received its corresponding culture of science and technology as an added “bonus”. This “set” of cultures did indeed help to make Japan a much wealthier country, but each required natural resources that Japan sorely lacked, causing the nation to turn its eyes outward to secure the resources it needed to pursue the Big Japan vision it had adopted. To put a long story short, this plotted the course for the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War, the annexation of Korea, and finally the establishment of Manchukuo.

 

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2016年4月に相次いだ地震で崩れた熊本城の石垣。

Crumbled stone foundation of Kumamoto Castle following the earthquakes in April 2016

 

 

現在までに早送りして、西洋文明を通して日本の神道の礎の上に植え付けたこの科学技術文明は、先で述べたように「自然を制服しようとする」という考え方を生み出します。ニュースでは「何故この噴火を予知できなかった」という問いかけや、地震予測に膨大の研究費を投資することも、やっぱり全ては「自然は制御できるべきものである」という考え方による発言(や行動)です。このように捉えてしまいますと、予知できなかったことは失敗と捉えてしまい、研究に投資した膨大な融資は無駄であったと捉えてしまいます。でも、これらを 失敗であると決めづけるは間違いと私が思っています。そもそも自然は制御できるものにあらず、古から人間の生活や社会を左右したものであります。文明の利器の発達によって西洋文明に染めた現在の文明はこの教訓を忘れていると思います。だから、梅原氏が唱える自然の両面を受け止めて、その一つずつに合わせてどのように生活できればいいかを真剣に考えなければならないです。

 

Fast forward to the present, and it seems that this culture of science and technology Japan received from the West and implanted upon its Shinto base “seeks to subjugate nature” as in the manner previously described. When we watch the news, we hear people say things like “why couldn’t they have predicted that eruption?” The same is true for the massive amount of money that is spent funding research on earthquake prediction, for pretty much every statement (or action) made is based on the idea that “nature is something which should (can) be controlled.” But if we always view events this way, the fact we couldn’t predict the occurrence of these disasters is perceived as a failure, and all that money pumped into research is considered to be a mere waste of funds. I think it’s wrong for us to completely write this off as a failure. We must remember that the forces of nature are beyond control, and that they have held sway over human life and society since ancient times. Contemporary society and culture, which are heavily dominated by the traditions of Western culture fostered through the advancement of its “modern conveniences”, has largely forgotten this basic lesson. Just as Umehara argues, we need to accept both faces of nature, and then seriously consider how to best adapt the way we live to each of them.