高度情報化社会の致命的な欠陥The Fatal Defect of the Information Society
Today’s hyper-information society stands precariously upon a massive, fatal defect, obscuring any clear view of the future. It is a civilizational error that attempts to measure human strength, happiness, and even existential value exclusively through quantitative specs—economic indicators and the abundance of social resources. We have become all too accustomed to calibrating ourselves and others through a myriad of numerical metrics: annual income, GDP, follower counts, and academic pedigrees.
Admittedly, numbers are extremely convenient. They are obvious to all, function as a common language, and possess a universality that allows specific national or ethnic values to be exported. At a glance, they appear to offer a fair hierarchy, possessing utility as a national goal for joining the global community. However, this fruit of "fair hierarchy" is the very cause of the troublesome issue transplanted into our foundation; it is a highly addictive fruit we can no longer quit. In this process, the algorithms of capitalism, pursuing efficiency and visualization to the extreme, have intentionally excluded the most critical, most sacred parameter that makes a human human from the equation, covering it up as if it never existed.
That parameter is "Will." Will cannot be quantified, nor can it be calculated. In the modern age, while the majority of individual discretion has been transferred to something other, the Will retains full discretion over the act of one's own decision-making. There is nothing more beautiful than the human Will.
Speaking of humans solely in terms of specs has become common sense, imprinted over generations through education and media as a fixed idea. The result is that modern people have fallen into a fatal functional dysfunction. The loss of the function of the "Sovereign"—the one who takes full responsibility for their own life and makes decisions without a compass in an uncertain world—is the most extreme example of this.
What has this produced? The external world has been affirmatively evaluated as materially richer, safer, and cleaner than ever before; yet spiritually, humanity has metastasized into a massive, grave herd of "Dependents," mouths agape, waiting for someone else to decide for them. Importantly, the definition of "humanity" has no universality; it shifts with the times. If we continue as this modern herd of Dependents, there is no destination but a future of decline.
Observing their behavior, one sees they are trapped in the delusion that a "correct answer" exists somewhere, looking for it only externally, never internally. Believing the answer is lying on the ground somewhere, they unconsciously crave for influencers, AI recommendations, or the government to "do something about me" day and night. They may speak in high-minded terms to keep up appearances, but they remain Dependents. The colossal penetration of social media has enforced this tendency—where approval from others is the sole basis for proof of existence—at a terrifying speed. It is no exaggeration to say we now live in a "Civilization of Hollow Shells," having outsourced our Will to algorithms via influencers, entrusting our souls to servers in the cloud. Influencers are merely capture devices used to reclaim people for the algorithm.
The essence of the pathology of Victimhood that once infested modern society also stems from this structural defect. Modern welfare and human rights systems have adjudicated people as "weak beings who must be protected," and by arbitrarily categorizing them, have skillfully stripped them of the burden of decision. The soothing whispers of "You are not at fault, society is," or " The environment is to blame," echo 24/7 in social media spaces. At first glance, this looks like salvation or kindness toward the weak, but in reality, it is nothing but a cruel deprivation of autonomy, castrating individual dignity to keep them under eternal management. Lamenting that "the times are bad," "politics are bad," or "parents are bad" is far easier than disciplining oneself.
I make no secret of the fact that I myself, having never had things go smoothly, could only lament and blame everything on others, as described above. However, after living for some 34 years, life-altering turning points do occur. In the midst of repeated trials, I began to sense that perhaps I was in this predicament precisely because I was shifting responsibility for my own life. I decided to stop running and face the trials thoroughly. In short, as I continued to hand over the steering wheel of my life to others while relentlessly pursuing the true nature of the problem, I eventually realized that the entity polluting me was "generalized common sense"—the very thing everyone believes without doubt.
Is this not the greatest barrier hindering human happiness? When I thought this, I saw a breakthrough in deconstructing, redefining, reinterpreting, and destroying generalized concepts. Currently, I am thoroughly enforcing a "displacement" of the ground from which that underlying thinking arises. As a result, those lamentations of responsibility-transfer have ceased entirely, and a path has opened up for me to push forward in the direction I must go.
What I understand painfully from these 34 years of experience is that the act of complaining is, in fact, a powerful consent to the status quo and the flip side of dependency. In other words, our social system is maintained because people complain. Defining oneself as a victim is synonymous with declaring, "I have no power to change the situation." The system becomes sustainable by acquiring a large denominator of such Dependents, violently reclaiming them through the power of democracy, which has metastasized into a logic of numbers bereft of essence. The global spread of the pathology of Victimhood is the ultimate form of abandoning one's potential. It promises the sweet relief of "not having to bear responsibility when things fail," and as long as one plays the victim, it is possible to substantiate the perpetrator as a virtual enemy. For a Dependent, nothing is more attractive.
In short, despite having made the decision to abandon responsibility for their own life, they ignore this entirely and shift all blame onto the responsibility of a materialized virtual perpetrator. Remaining within this safe cage is the greatest disease corroding the survival instinct of modern man.
If we call this state "Autonomy Paralysis," this is the true poverty of the modern age. We must invert the definition here. Regardless of social status, a human who is frightened by market trends or the expressions of others, unable to decide their own path, is an unmistakable "weakling." Conversely, even those who possess no money, status, or honor, if they resolve to stand in the wilderness on their own feet and make solitary decisions one after another without anyone's permission, are absolute "strongs." For me, the boundary line between the strong and the weak is simply the presence or absence of the "resolve to live by oneself." Everything else is nonsense, mere excuses.
The abundance of resources is merely a situational description; it has no influence whatsoever on the resolve to live one's life. Having been brainwashed to believe it does have influence is how hegemony has been maintained since the modern era began; there is no fruit more easy and delicious than this lie. The presence or absence of the "resolve to accept total responsibility for one's life" is the only absolute boundary separating humans. If one has time to worry about those who voluntarily choose the path of the Dependent, one should instead do what one must do for oneself. Time is the greatest asset; it is not the occasion to squander it.
So, what survival strategy should we adopt for the incoming future? If we look at the era coldly, what the world faces next is a violently fluid, liquefied, and cruel era where existing rules, currencies, borders, and evaluation axes will collapse with a roar. In a wilderness where past legacies and titles no longer apply, who will survive?
One thing is certain: it will not be those who mistake "being protected" for a right and continue to wait for an answer. It is those who can decide, here and now, in this moment. The strong are not Rulers who dominate others; they are Deciders who dominate their own fate and exercise the right to choose. And in the first place, domination does not exist. Here, when we return all values to a zero base, as a solution to the modern pathology of "decision dysfunction," the concept of Dokkodo (The Way of Walking Alone), written by the swordsman Miyamoto Musashi in a cave just before his death—and which I mentioned yesterday—emerges with intense reality.
"Dokko" does not refer to physically shutting oneself in the mountains or social Isolation. It refers to a spiritual "primordial" stance—a mindset—of placing the Origin of all decisions within oneself.
Unmoved by the noise rampant in modern society—evaluations of others, social atmosphere, moral peer pressure—one judges everything from one's own axis. Even if one is in a crowd, the spirit is always solitary; this is the true meaning of Dokko. Therefore, those who understand Dokko will not waver, no matter what world they step into. Unless the axis of the self wavers, the vision remains fixed on a single point, regardless of how the world shakes. Beyond this fixed point lies nothing but the Mandate of Heaven spoken of by Confucius: how one intends to live.
Crucial to implementing Dokko in oneself is the elimination of dependency. People continue to expect salvation from governments, systems, or transcendent others like gods and Buddhas, but if we are to pull back thorough autonomy as a condition for survival, everyone must steel themselves. In a sense, for people in developed nations, these past few decades were simply the first era in history where it was possible to live without trouble from the perspective of human survival. Such a period is extremely short and fleeting when viewed against human history. As the Japanese phrase "fleeting dream" suggests, dreams always scatter fragility. It is because we cling to them that the world goes mad.
Just because an ideal was realized once does not guarantee it will last forever. Furthermore, as the times are a changing living entity, it is impossible for that ideal form to be a universal ideal form. When this is misunderstood, dependency leads to a reversal toward stagnation and regression that no one can stop. This is the present. This happens because universality is perceived as a non-biological fixation.
Expect help from no one; rely on neither gods nor Buddhas. This desperate, perhaps solitary autonomy paradoxically brings the strongest mental stability. Now that the era of peace has completely ended, I believe this is an essential mindset to survive the coming turbulent 2030s. For a human who has established a self that is entirely independent of the external environment before the upheaval, societal fluctuations, the betrayal of others, or even natural disasters can no longer be fatal wounds.
Miyamoto Musashi left behind the mindset: "Respect the gods and Buddhas, but do not rely on them." It is the resolve to esteem the divine, yet ask nothing of it. When visiting shrines, almost all modern Japanese pray to the gods for their own wishes, but asking gods for such private desires is out of the question.
Deeply respect the gods, Buddhas, or the unknowable force of fate, but do not count on salvation from them, nor entrust your actions to anything other than yourself. To pray but not to rely—this stance is the mindset for facing an uncertain world. The life of the swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, who faced the strongmen of his era one after another and won through to the end without a single defeat, was determined by this very mindset of living.
Whatever your situation may be, the starting line is to accept it completely as your own field. Instead of wasting time lamenting that the cards dealt are poor, devote that thought to how to play the cards. No matter how much the scale of humanity expands or how technology evolves, the fact that individual free discretion holds the quality of life has never changed throughout human history. Universality is not what is currently spoken of; the resolve and decision to live one's own life is the only unchangeable constant since the beginning of human history. No one can shake your decision, and no one has the authority to decide your path in your stead.
The structure of the Japanese word for "Decision"—Ketsudan (決断)—is written as "Decide and Cut: 決めて断つ.“ Here lies the cruel truth of survival. This means that to decide and choose something is to simultaneously kill all other possibilities. Deciding to take path A is to sever forever the future that might have existed on paths B or C, and the happiness that might have been gained there. It is a world where neither the recollection nor the regret of "I should have done that back then" exists.
However, modern people excessively fear this "Death of Possibility." A mysterious terror—"Isn't there a better option?", "Will I lose out?", "The timing isn't right yet"—causes them to postpone decision, to hold off. The result is a farcical situation where they create their own paralysis: knowing they must change, yet refusing to change.
In modern times, this is conveniently called "optimization," but the reality is merely an excuse for cowardly procrastination. Yet, while holding off, life does not advance anywhere; worse, the same opportunity never comes twice. Life is an extremely harsh reality. Trying to preserve all possibilities only guarantees that you will rot away without becoming anything, promising a path toward being a Dependent. The act of not deciding is, in itself, having already made the worst decision: "to be swept away by others."
Modern society will offer words disguised as kindness—"That's fine, that is who you are"—but life will ruthlessly expel such individuals.
Furthermore, Miyamoto Musashi left the words: "I have no regret in any of my affairs." Many misread this as "do not reflect," but that is incorrect. This is the ultimate attitude of self-affirmation that transcends the time axis: the current self takes full responsibility for past decisions. Regret is an escape to a parallel world that does not exist—"If I had chosen differently back then"—and is a base act of pushing the responsibility for the current predicament onto one's past self. It is a denial of the current self, a suicide of the spirit.
The philosophy of Dokko teaches that all past decisions have created the current self; only by swallowing this causality whole and affirming it can one take a step toward the future. And this causality flows not from past to present, but from the future toward the present. The one standing at the chaotic meeting place of this bidirectional spiral time is the "I" of this very moment.
The philosophy of Dokko can serve as a drastic medicine for today's complex-system society. To know better than anyone that, regarding the uncertain future, there is no "correct answer" anywhere. It is because people seek a single universal correct answer—which does not exist—that they are swept away by the opinions of others and lose their own lives. Do not seek answers from others; cut off all retreat while remaining your imperfect self. That sharpness is what forms the contours of a life. Only when you throw something away does what remains in your hand begin to shine. That is when you see what is truly important to you.
Cries for the "recovery of humanity" are heard from out of nowhere, but I question whether that is truly the humanity humans possess. Healing without autonomy is mere anesthesia. What I propose is not such a temporary warm blanket, but a truth like a cold blade. If you hand over the Sovereignty of your life to someone else and live self-domesticated within a safe cage, I highly doubt you can survive the coming turbulent era—perhaps the peaceful times of the past, but not what is coming.
If so, should we not accept all loneliness and responsibility and live as humans in the wilderness? To confine the weak in the system of society as "pitiful beings to be protected" is an act that strips them of determination and decision—the final dignity possessed by a human being.
The resolve to accept everything and carve out a path beyond the difficult times is true strength, and it is the only survival strategy for the future we should aim for. If there is hesitation, you must decide. Now.