朱子学的都市論と陽明学的都市論Urban Theory After Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming

Yesterday, I wrote of how the world was irrevocably shifted by the emergence of a methodology designed by the Song dynasty Confucian scholar, Zhu Xi—a foundation of thought rooted in the separation inherent in the dualism of ri (理) and ki (気). Bearing that problematic consciousness in mind, I wish to turn our thoughts today to the theory of the city. Personally, as I have walked through various regions of Japan, I have long pondered the nature of the places where culture is born. Yet, while I could grasp this sensorially, I found it difficult to articulate in language.

However, having written yesterday’s article and walking the streets while contemplating the dualism of ri and ki, I came to a realization. The heartache, the profound dissonance that humans feel from the modern city, may very well be the inverse consequence of this dualism by Zhu Xi having progressed to its ultimate extreme in urban design and development, placing a heavy load upon the human spirit. Of course, this may not be occurring on a global scale and might be limited to certain cities, but the underlying problem consciousness remains universal.

Above all, the reason this urban theory is so easily visualized through the lens of Japan is due to the fact that Tokyo is currently positioned as the world’s preeminent metropolis of burnout. There are various reasons for this, but the fact that the Japanese urban structure—particularly in its megalopolises—is designed to keep its inhabitants in a state of ceaseless activation effectively constructs a condition where one is "always on." Applying an invisible pressure that compels a perpetual "on" state without granting time to switch "off" is patently absurd and unsustainable. Why, then, do regional cities, led by the major metropolitan areas of Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya, present such a disastrous spectacle? This was where I felt a strong, undeniable wrongness.

In truth, this invisible oppression has clearly intensified in Tokyo over the past few years. People have strengthened their mutual surveillance, triggering a chain reaction of burnout that drags everyone down together. Or perhaps, rather than burnout, we have entered a phase that precedes it—a mode akin to a tree that has withered and died. That is to say, rather than simply calling Tokyo the world’s leading burnout city, the very act of applying the conventional concept of burnout is now beside the point. Tokyo has already disclosed to the world what lies beyond burnout. Over the next thirty years, with varying time lags, cities everywhere will likely grapple with this common affliction. Just as the social issues of social withdrawal, depression, and suicide that became problematic in Japan thirty years ago are now surfacing globally with that same temporal delay, Tokyo is, in a sense, running at the vanguard of an unfortunate precedent.

One could discuss these simply as social problems. However, in this instance, I will focus on how the introduction of Zhu Xi’s dualism of ri and ki into the design of urban structures drives the minds of those who dwell within them toward madness.

This is because modern urban planning is premised on the movement of first drawing the ideal blueprint—the ri (Principle)—developing it, and then attempting to optimize human beings to the completed city. In other words, what is important in urban planning is the external matter which is thought to possess the ri itself in Zhu Xi’s philosophy. We perceive that matter as the city, but to be more precise, the ri refers to the act of planning itself. At this juncture, the human beings who live there are not seen at all. In this scenario, the human existence is perceived only as a component, a part that need only optimize itself to the planned, designed, and developed city. To put it bluntly, it means not looking at people; but if one adopts the Zhu Xi system, the power to see people is inevitably lost.

Urban design has been discussed through various terms—grids, zoning, smart cities—but these function only within a social system, in historical regions or places where the voice of the citizen is strong. That is, urban design has preconditions based on the origin of the place. Origins change when one moves locations, but here, entangled with the counterfeit commodity of a globally unified "universalism," place is homogenized into a singular space, and thus this issue is not considered in urban design.

It is particularly meaningless to bring this concept into regions where the historical context of citizens’ voices generating the city is tenuous. This is because, not limited to urban design, the prerequisite system structure is one where everything is always decided by the will from above. Therefore, even if examples of grids, zoning, or smart cities that have succeeded in parts of Europe are imported into Japan, where the context differs, the essence I am describing here is not understood by anyone involved in Japanese urban design and development. Consequently, it results merely in a distribution within a conglomeration of vested interests. In short, the practice of adopting novel ideas or unfamiliar terms and pretending to implement them is rampant. However, in this movement, the major premise of the import—the context of Western historical democracy and the power of the citizen—is ignored. Eventually, we fall into the current state where nothing progresses other than urban planning designed for the revenue of those parasitic upon these interests, a situation that cannot even be dignified as "top-down." This is the reality of Japan.

I do not believe that the movement to fit humans into a city within the ideal blueprint of the dualism of ri and ki is inherently wrong. The problem converges on the question: in this ideal blueprint, whose ideal is it, and an ideal of what? Particularly for regions like Japan and China, which are accustomed not to the Western movement where things are achieved by the power of citizens from below, but to the Confucian top-down history where the will of the top determines everything, the very meaning of "ideal" in this blueprint becomes more important than anything else. In this case, it must be questioned whether the personality of the person involved in determining the ideal blueprint (ri)—that is, their heart itself—possesses yohaku (余白), implies room to sway, and maintains a state of relaxation rather than constant tension. In short, if the person standing at the top is someone whose balance of sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves is appropriately maintained and who possesses an international sensibility, this urban design functions extremely well.

In fact, during Japan's post-war period of high economic growth, this tendency itself appeared with vitality. However, in the process of the system shifting completely to bureaucracy toward the late 1990s, such yohaku were deemed illogical and were expelled. In the Zhu Xi system, the absolutization of intellectualism within ri is carried out, and the bureaucracy reigns as the guardian of that system. Once such a system is established, everything illogical that cannot be elucidated by intellectualism is discarded. At this time, the signifier of the city is hidden, and the city is solidified by the bureaucratic signified. I believe this is connected to the movement in which Japan began to transform significantly from around the 1990s, but ultimately, it is also a problem of urban design. And if we scrutinize this problem of urban design, we ultimately arrive at this issue of the dualism of ri and ki. The problem of the city is not an idea of aesthetics.

Therefore, while grids, zoning, and smart cities may be correct as ri, when one actually visits such places, they feel somewhat frigid and, above all, lack vitality. Originally, a city should not be defined by box-like buildings or spaces, but by the expressions of the people living there; yet, there is no life. Rather, one conclusion has emerged in Japanese urban development: there are no vibrant areas in the city centers. That is to say, Japanese urban development has failed completely, and the fact is, it has crossed a critical point of no return.

This is because the system premised on the dualism of ri and ki in the conception of Zhu Xi’s urban theory is the prerequisite. Simply put, it is the idea that if you build the hardware (form), the software (spirit) will enter. But when the population becomes excessively dense or exhaustive elements appear in society, a condition becomes rampant where the soul does not enter the created vessel. Tokyo is typical of this, but currently, this Tokyo model is being forcibly adopted throughout Japan, and total destruction is proceeding. Above all, the people involved in urban design do not realize this ri itself. It is not so much that they do not notice, but that they are indifferent, or even if they notice, they ignore it. This is because, for their career advancement, evaluations that cannot be quantified are irrelevant.

However, if we shift our recognition from this Zhu Xi style of urban theory, a completely different concept comes into view. This perspective is becoming important in all regions, not limited to those under the influence of Confucianism. The keyword is "condensation" (凝結). It begins by perceiving the nation or the city as "the place where a great ki condenses." This epistemological shift involves re-perceiving the city not as physical buildings, roads, and plazas—inorganic masses of concrete—but as a state of "condensation" where the ki—the heat, ambition, trust, and desire of the people who originally live there—has cooled and solidified.

If we view this from the perspective of the Zhu Xi urban theory discussed so far, the thinking itself differs from the root. Briefly stated, the idea that "good urban planning raises good citizens" is itself based on Zhu Xi’s dualism of ri and ki. Instead, we must enact a transference to perceive it thus: "Because the ki of the citizens is clear, and because there is high heat and ethical depth, a beautiful city condenses."

When we proceed with this way of thinking as our premise, it becomes apparent that by looking at the appearance of a city, one can understand the degree of the people's ki. This is because the city itself appears as a result in the present, a mode of the condensation of the ki of those who dwell there. Therefore, by walking that city and looking at the faces of its people, one can understand everything, including that city's potential and its future. I consider this to be of utmost importance in urban theory.

For example, let us look at the "shuttered street" phenomenon of shopping districts, which has been a problem in Japan since around the turn of the 21st century yet has seen no solution. One might simply say it is the result of economic recession, but economic recession is merely a result of logic. The figure of the shuttered shopping street is the result of the condensation of the ki of resignation and mutual distrust of the people living in that region. However, the people who addressed this problem, and even the parties within the shopping districts themselves, did not possess this recognition. They discussed only the problems of ri and stagnated, resulting in no solution, only a quiet fade-out.

In fact, what I have been observing in Japan is the concept of yohaku in the city, but this is not considered at all. A city invariably requires yohaku, but this means designing with the premise of leaving room for yohaku to be born. This is because yohaku cannot be designed in urban planning. Yohaku is not created by human artifice; it is generated naturally from places where human artifice does not reach. It is not intentionally created. It is crucial here to hold the view that "yohaku itself is a living subject." For instance, the creation of culture in post-war Japan was basically born from yohaku.

After the war, the urban areas were reduced to scorched earth by air raids, leaving countless empty lots. Here, post-war children spontaneously devised games utilizing these vast empty spaces, sharpening their sensibilities, and eventually laying the foundation for the culture of the subsequent high economic growth period. Furthermore, at the same time, because the official markets had all collapsed, black markets developed, and various cultures were born there. Koenji and Shimokitazawa, famous as cultural epicenters in Tokyo, are forms that developed from these black markets. And when the student movements of the 1960s became active, it was the back alleys that became the epicenters of culture. The Golden Gai, a back alley in Shinjuku, is now famous as a tourist spot, but at the time it held such a position; it was the source of life where culture sprouted. Thus, even a cursory glance reveals that when yohaku is born in a city, even if it looks like a chaotic energy is merely condensing messily, extreme vitality is born there. This is because the dense ki of people wanting to live, wanting to enjoy, condenses in a narrow place to become a mode of existence, possessing a gravity that attracts people. This was true of Japanese cities until the 1980s, but it vanished completely from the perspective of urban design after the collapse of the bubble economy. Because the heat of human beings is incalculable. Thus, the idea that keeping every corner clean is important in urban design took over, and culture vanished from the city.

The beauty or ugliness of a city is not a problem of design as aesthetics, but a projection of the hearts of the people living there, and it is something with a tangible, certain texture. However, in Japanese urban design, which has completely absolutized the dualism of ri and ki, this is not understood at all. As a result, the arrogance that a correct form (ri) exists externally in the city beforehand, and that designers and developers project this onto physical space (ki), has taken over.

Here, the stakeholders of urban design judge everything not by heart but by the ri of intellectualism, so there is not a speck of room to consider yohaku. People who do not hold yohaku in their hearts are running the nation and companies, making decisions; it is impossible for yohaku to be born in the city as a reflection of this. Consequently, culture disappears. This is typical in large cities like Tokyo and Osaka: grid roads, zoning, tower mansions, smart cities are designed one after another at the idea level, but what is happening here is urban design from the "God's-eye view" looking down from the sky. In fact, this perspective of urban design did not exist in Japan before the Western influence entered in the Meiji era. This is because the linguistic structure is completely different.

The "God's-eye view" is peculiar to subject-based languages. Japanese, being a predicate-based language, historically did not possess this view of looking down from the sky; structurally, it has a history where urban design was created by the gaze of people walking on the ground. In other words, the thinking ground itself was completely different, which is why a unique quality was born in the city itself. That became catastrophic after Meiji, resulting in today's misery. It is because they thoughtlessly accepted something with completely different preconditions. When accepting something of a different origin without thought, introducing it into one's own origin, it inevitably leads to psychological ruin. Ancient tribes, when accepting something of a different origin, always performed rites to mix and blend them. But because this was ignored as unscientific in the modern era, the origin of the city itself collapsed, resulting in total disintegration over about 160 years. The positioning of Tokyo as the world's leading burnout city must be seen not just through recent history, but through a misalignment of origins spanning over a century.

However, this "God's-eye view" of different origin was actually generated on the ground of separation, so it was extremely compatible with Zhu Xi’s dualism of ri and ki. Through the marriage of these two, which premise separation, a stance emerged to analyze the structure of the city and construct an optimal system from the outside. At this time, the basis for thoroughly enforcing the thinking that captures ri as an absolute truth existing externally in separation was formed, and Zhu Xi's theory reached its completed form.

However, when we transform our thinking to believe that the ri of the city does not exist in the blueprint (outside) from the beginning, but is generated in the swaying of the hearts of the people who walk, worry, and enjoy themselves there, a completely different horizon comes into view. This different horizon is synchronic and parallel. That is, the shift from Zhu Xi to the urban theory in the theory of Wang Yangming. It is not a dualism where one is absolutely right and the other wrong. It is a highly advanced ri where tension is generated in the city by the existence of both, synchronically and in parallel.

I brought up Wang Yangming here because, in contrast to Zhu Xi’s dualism of ri and ki, he proposed the perspective of shin soku ri (心即理), "the heart is principle."

Shin soku ri means that the heart is immediately the ri, and the ri is immediately the heart. Furthermore, the heart is immediately ki, and ki is immediately ri; it is a philosophy of non-separation that captures everything as a unity. Through this philosophy of non-separation, back alleys, naturally occurring drinking districts, and accidental encounters in plazas are born. Because if we consider this as a "Yangming Urban Theory," distinct from the Zhu Xi Urban Theory, the city is designed from the perspective of the person walking on the ground. Moreover, it is not something designed intentionally by a designer, but becomes a naturally generated "condensation of ki" by creating the room for yohaku to move firmly. In other words, the true work of the urban designer is not to construct the urban structure precisely from a God's-eye view, but lies in nothing other than creating room for yohaku to be generated naturally.

Therefore, in urban design as well, we must transfer the intellectualist viewpoint that analyzes urban structure multilaterally, and shift to the stance that the essence of the city can only be grasped by actually walking the streets and interacting with the people who live there. Currently, the design of Zhu Xi’s urban theory is being realized at the highest level in the world in China rather than Japan, but moving toward a structure that completely manages the city itself through big data, AI, and automation is the completed form of the urban theory in Zhu Xi’s dualism of ri and ki. Japan has simply not realized a system at the Chinese level, because the pace at which it adopts technology is different.

There may be viewpoints regarding traffic congestion and energy efficiency, but this becomes prominent in the characteristic of behavioral management of people—that is, the optimization of the people living in that box (the city). This is because, by thoroughly pursuing the ri which is intellectualism, one aims not for a city where human ki flows and circulates, but to control the city itself as a perfect city. Here, a complete external norm that ignores humans works strongly, and a highly advanced bureaucratic mechanism becomes necessary. This is because Zhu Xi’s dualism of ri and ki is an urban theory sharpened to the extreme. In other words, the final form of this Zhu Xi urban theory is that the human being itself is hidden as a signifier, and by covering it completely with the signified, the human vanishes.

In truth, rather than the disappearance of humans by AI and automation which is viewed as a problem recently, we should look at the reality that humans are vanishing in the city. The disappearance of humans from the city means, by extension, the disappearance of humans from the nation and the world. This disappearance of humans does not mean people migrating from the city to other regions and disappearing; it means vanishing while existing there.

However, even if that is considered as one future, it is too dangerous to place too much weight on this one side alone. That is, if we proceed with the Zhu Xi urban theory, we must simultaneously allow the coexistence of the Yangming urban theory, which perceives that comfort, intuition, and individual impulses—which do not appear in data—create the charm of the city. By thoroughly asserting that creating yohaku in the human heart that deviate from the ri of efficiency, optimization, and data is precisely what makes a city a city, the figure of the city in the era when people were vibrant comes into view. But currently, this is absent.

The musician Ryuichi Sakamoto spoke in his later years of how, until the 1980s, cities like Tokyo, New York, Berlin, and London each had a unique sound, but globalization homogenized everything, and everywhere became the same sound. When the noise that is the unique sound of a city disappears, we must discern what is appearing relatively in its place.

In this piece, I have discussed this using Japan as a reference example, but a problem common to urban areas across the world must be surfacing. At this time, rather than simply perceiving globalization as evil, we must reflect on why, for these past few decades, we have absolutized only one system and have not tried to create yohaku that coexist in parallel. The same can be said for AI. Unless people realize that the attitude of processing everything consistently through a binary of good and evil is actually the greatest problem of the modern era, there is certainly no future for the nation, the city, or the person.

In any era, continuing to change is the only immutable nature, and not changing is unnatural.