田中正造考 (一) : 序論 正造の現代文明批判
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Shozo Tanaka(1841-1913)was the man who guided the movement against the large-scale pollution that took place along the basin of the River Watarase between Tochigi Prefecture and Gunma Prefecture in 1890. In the first half of the twenty three years of his movement, he fought as a Diet member for his voters. His way of doing battle was to fight with arms of the Constitution in the Diet. But, after eleven years of his battle, he found his way helpless and resigned his seat, because both the government and the Diet had regarded this damage as an inevitable sacrifice in order to promote industry. Shozo, then, lived among the folk of Yanaka village, which had been abandoned in order to pool copper poison water as a large reservoir. He made a thorough investigation of every stream and river in the Kanto district, contemplating foresty and river conservation. He criticized severely the water-control steps of executive agencies, and presented petitions. During these years, he changed from a statesman with a sense of justice to a practical man of thought. Shozo came to think that this pollution was not just a domestic issue related to one region of a small country in the Far East, but a worldwide one, or the problem of our civilization. Indeed, modern civilization has advanced in a material way. Streetcars and telephones have brought our lives more rapidity and efficiency. Our machine civilization, in one sense, has constructed a Paradise. But it is the Paradise which has been built by devastating mountains and rivers, destroying villages, killing people, and thus making an Infemo. If our civilization should not be prosperous by ruining mountains and rivers and human beings, it has to choose different values; values other than rapidity and efficiency. The destiny of mountains and rivers, whose lives should be counted in billions of years must not be decided by mankind who have short lives and shallow wits. Shozo says, humankind are the beings who are cradled in the arms of all things in the heavens and the earth ('Ten-chi') and fostered by them, not the ones who are superior to them and rule over them.
- 北海道東海大学の論文
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- 田中正造考 (一) : 序論 正造の現代文明批判