JК
Dogs and Demons :: Керр Алекс
Страница: 28 из 270Many more ancient wooden buildings and artworks on paper and silk remain in Japan than in China, despite China's far greater size. Italy, likewise, has endured volcanoes and earthquakes far more severe than Japan has ever experienced, yet «impermanence» is not the abiding theme of Italian or Chinese literature. That it so dominates Japanese thought may have something to do with the ancient desire for Wa, « peace» or «stasis.» Any sudden change, whether in politics or the weather, is an insult to Wa. Hence the fear of and fascination with «impermanence.»
One of the persistent myths about Japan held by many Japanese and accepted unthinkingly by Western observers is that in the golden age before Commodore Perry arrived, the Japanese dwelled innocently in harmony with nature and that only with the arrival of Westerners did they learn to attack and subdue the environment. The romantic in all of us would like to believe this. «It was only when Japan modernized (and therefore Westernized) that it learned the ambition of conquering nature,» writes Patrick Smith in Japan: A Reinterpretation. According to Smith, Japan regrets what it «has taken from the West: its excessive corporatism and materialism, the animosity toward nature that displaced the ancient intimacy.»
That is the myth. Now the reality. Where is the «animosity to nature» that is supposedly such an inbred feature of the West? Obviously, modern technology has led to environmental destruction all over the earth. Yet in the West this destruction has been tempered in local communities, where people have fought to preserve their villages, houses, and fields. Nothing remotely like what is happening in Japan has occurred in Europe or the United States. In England, France, Italy, and even industrial Germany, thousands of square miles of lovingly tended fields, picturesque thatched villages, un-dammed rivers and un-concreted seashore are preserved. Europe and the United States, not Japan, are in the forefront of environmental movements; in case after case – from the logging of rain forest in Malaysia and Indonesia to drift-net fishing – Japan fights these movements with every political and economic tool at its disposal. Where are the Westerners who are teaching Japan to destroy its landscape? From Lafcadio Hearn in the early 1900s to Donald Richie's The Inland Sea in the 1970s and Alan Booth's Looking for the Lost in the 1980s, Western observers have been lamenting what they saw as Japan's destruction of its natural heritage. They have certainly not been urging Japan toward further destruction.
The key to the misunderstanding lies in the telltale words «modernized (and therefore Westernized).
One of the persistent myths about Japan held by many Japanese and accepted unthinkingly by Western observers is that in the golden age before Commodore Perry arrived, the Japanese dwelled innocently in harmony with nature and that only with the arrival of Westerners did they learn to attack and subdue the environment. The romantic in all of us would like to believe this. «It was only when Japan modernized (and therefore Westernized) that it learned the ambition of conquering nature,» writes Patrick Smith in Japan: A Reinterpretation. According to Smith, Japan regrets what it «has taken from the West: its excessive corporatism and materialism, the animosity toward nature that displaced the ancient intimacy.»
That is the myth. Now the reality. Where is the «animosity to nature» that is supposedly such an inbred feature of the West? Obviously, modern technology has led to environmental destruction all over the earth. Yet in the West this destruction has been tempered in local communities, where people have fought to preserve their villages, houses, and fields. Nothing remotely like what is happening in Japan has occurred in Europe or the United States. In England, France, Italy, and even industrial Germany, thousands of square miles of lovingly tended fields, picturesque thatched villages, un-dammed rivers and un-concreted seashore are preserved. Europe and the United States, not Japan, are in the forefront of environmental movements; in case after case – from the logging of rain forest in Malaysia and Indonesia to drift-net fishing – Japan fights these movements with every political and economic tool at its disposal. Where are the Westerners who are teaching Japan to destroy its landscape? From Lafcadio Hearn in the early 1900s to Donald Richie's The Inland Sea in the 1970s and Alan Booth's Looking for the Lost in the 1980s, Western observers have been lamenting what they saw as Japan's destruction of its natural heritage. They have certainly not been urging Japan toward further destruction.
The key to the misunderstanding lies in the telltale words «modernized (and therefore Westernized).