「勝てば官軍、負ければ賊軍」という言葉は興味深い。重要とされているのは善悪ではなく、勝ち負けだけだからだ。善悪が重視されない社会は滅びるだろうか？　それとも原始的社会なのか？　あるいは地獄なのか？
　人間の住む世界は地獄にちかくなることもある。たとえば日本の戦国時代は、人を信じることが難しかった。親と子が殺し合った。そんな社会に秩序をもたらすのが、宗教であり哲学であり、思想だ。調和主義もそのような思想の一つ。

PART FOUR:
Civil Warism: a fundamental idea

By Shun Daichi

An Australian asked me, "The Japanese talk about harmony and the people are generally gentle, but in your history you have destroyed the harmony of the world through the wars and business expansions and are not necessarily that gentle to other people. Why was that?"

My answer was, "because fundamentally the Japanese know only "Civil Warism," and when there is no Harmonism at work, then Civil Warism dominates the Japanese mind. The basic rule of Civil Warism is, "if you win you are right, I you lose you are wrong."

I may have to explain more.

It is interesting to compare two books; one is "King Rat" by James Clavell and the other is "Black Bread Diary" by a Japanese author Keishi Kurumizawa.

Both books are based on authors' true experiences as a prisoner of a war in the concentration camps during WWII.

There were clear differences between a camp of Japanese prisoners and a camp of British and Australian prisoners, especially when there was a power vacuum.

As prisoners, the British and Australians organized themselves and tried to run the camp by themselves. They liked to govern the camps by law and orders in democratic ways. What happened often in the Japanese camps was civil war and whoever had the strongest power dominated others under a harsh dictatorship. Japanese did not look for laws and orders or democratic ways.

Those who finally controlled the Japanese prisoner camps in a power vacuum were often Yakuza-type people (Japanese Mafia).

This implies what will happen to our society without Harmonism at the time of power vacuum.

Civil Warism is a more fundamental idea for men and women. Extreme Civil Warism must have a long history in Japan and the world in general. We Japanese used to know nothing else.

Origin of Civil Warism may be in China where people suffered more than Japanese. The idea maybe introduced to Japan at around 2500 years ago by Yayoi people who invaded Jomon land of Japan.

Jomon culture was a prosperous and people lived in harmony. Jomon culture must be based on Harmonism. 10000 years ago Japan was a blessed island, rich in food and with nice wheather. Jomon people had good rich life according to latest archiological findings.

Therefore, Harmonism may be rooted in Jomon period of 14,000 years ago and fought against Civil Warism of Yayoi people at around 2500 years ago when people from China invaded peaceful island of Jomon.

It appears to me that in Europe, instead of Harmonism, ideas of "contract" and "law and order" were developed.

Civil Warism is still one of the fundamental values today and the under-current of our society. One example is the practice of some Japanese companies to tender for an expensive computer system for just "one yen."

The Japanese companies compete with each other extremely hard inside and outside Japan. Therefore without cartels and Harmonism only one company may be left today.

Civil Warism found haven outside Japan in the free trade system because there was no Harmonism to restrict its movement.

There is a difference between free competition and Civil Warism. In the free trade system there are a set of rules and one is expected to compete "fairly." However, Civil Warism regards rules as a tool to win, in other word to "dominate," just like what happened in those concentration camps.

That "Japan Bashing" occurred in South-East Asia about 30 years ago and sometime ago in the U.S. was not surprising to many Japanese because we practice "Bashing" inside Japan quite often.

When Fujitsu made its "One yen tender offer" the company was bashed by our society. The same thing happened with the Recruit scandal.

And the bashing of former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka was another case. In our society when Civil Warism becomes too strong and goes beyond the limit of Harmonism then Harmonism knocks them back into their proper place.

Outside Japan, however, this mechanism does not work, therefore "Japan Bashing" by other countries unfortunately become inevitable.

Harmonism is very important for Japan because we have no other way to control Civil Warism.

Civil Warism may be common to all human beings for the human nature must be the same all over the world.

Therefore we developed social system, such as democracy, autocracy, religions and dictatorship to control Civil Warism. Western society controls Civil Warism by Law and Order. Islam countries control Civil Warism by religious teachings. Japan controls Civil Warism by Harmonism.

(To be continued)