"Shizen" is a Japanese word for nature.
1. Worldview
Modern civilization is reaching its limits. Across North America, groundwater is being depleted, and agriculture in some regions may soon become impossible. Phosphorus and potassium, essential raw materials for chemical fertilizers, may also be depleted within the next few decades. Over the past fifty years, humanity has reduced the populations of insects, fish, birds, and other animals by roughly half. As the natural world continues to collapse, it is unlikely that humanity alone can survive. Capitalism, too, is reaching its limits. Debt has accumulated to astronomical levels across the world, and before long, the global economy may suffer a shock on a scale humanity has never experienced before.
So what are the capitalist elites thinking in the face of this crisis? Their answer, it seems, is population reduction. They have supposedly set five hundred million as the “optimal” population for the planet and are seeking to eliminate roughly eight billion people. They believe this is the right thing to do for the survival of humanity. But where does the idea that the Earth can support only five hundred million people come from? If all of humanity practiced agriculture without relying on chemical fertilizers, five billion people could live on the planet. If we stopped eating meat, ten billion people could live here. For the capitalist elites, the notion of an “optimal” population is nothing more than an excuse. The reason they want to eliminate eight billion people is precisely because that is what the logic of capitalism demands.
So what is the logic of capitalism? It is the belief that everything in the world, every material thing and every form of value, can be bought with money. It also treats individual property rights as absolute. Today, roughly half of the world's wealth is controlled by around sixty billionaires. If we follow the logic of capitalism to its ultimate conclusion, the Earth itself belongs to them. And if property rights are absolute, then driving other people off a planet that one supposedly owns becomes nothing more than an exercise of one's legitimate rights.
Why, then, did humanity come to embrace such a harsh logic as capitalism? Modern civilization is, in essence, Western civilization. And Western civilization developed through the practice of Christian teachings. Christ preached love and rejected the pursuit of money. For a certain period, the West prospered precisely because it remained faithful to Christ’s teachings. However, the emergence of Protestantism changed the course of history. As Max Weber pointed out, Protestantism was at the root of the rise of capitalism. With the advent of Protestantism, Christianity gradually transformed from a religion centered on love into one increasingly focused on the pursuit of wealth.
The religion of money brainwashes people, convincing them that they cannot survive without money. If you want to survive, the first thing you need to do is leave the Church of Money. You must free yourself from the brainwashing that has been imposed upon you.
2. What is Shizentopia?
"Shizentopia” is a philosophy that combines Masanobu Fukuoka’s philosophy of respect for nature with the idea of utopianism.
When considering the differences between East and West, comparing Japan and Britain—two island nations—makes those differences particularly clear. In the eighteenth century, Edo was the largest city in the world, with a population of one million, yet it was also an ecological city in which resources were continually recycled. Britain, on the other hand, with London at its center, expanded overseas in search of resources and established colonies. And today, the West is planning to establish human settlements on Mars. Regardless of which approach is ultimately right or wrong, what is needed today is an ecological philosophy rooted in the Japanese way of thinking.
It is not widely known that the first ideology to emerge in opposition to capitalism was not communism, but utopianism. Whether we are talking about capitalism or communism, both systems begin with the question of ownership. Capitalism holds that property should be owned by individuals, while communism holds that it should be owned by the state. Utopianism, however, begins by asking a more fundamental question: What does happiness mean for human beings? It then seeks to build society from that starting point. Rather than finding value in material possessions, utopianism finds value in love.
3.Site Usage
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3. About the Webmaster
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