Urban ecology (Sociology) -- Japan; Urban renewal -- Japan
Let us take a look at a typical farm family. The son is a white
collar worker, and so of course belongs to the city. The head of
the household is a part-time farmer who farms on Sunday, and
belongs to the city Monday through Saturday. Even on Sunday when
he does his farm work, he belongs to the city if he benefits
from petroleum and agricultural chemicals. If, after he comes
home from the fields, he drinks beer and watches television, he
belongs to the city. In this way we can see that, in the entire
country of Japan there is not a single place that has not been
urbanized, not a single place that deserves to be called
"country." Yea, it is not going too far to say that the chilling
breath of this devil the city can be felt now in the remotest
corners of the villages, and that the country has been completely
occupied by the city, or shall we say, the commercialism of the
city.
But this is reality, says the city. We must recognize reality as
it is. We must respect reality.
The Real, Invisible Country
However, when we take a close look we see that though they chant
Reality! Reality! we can at any time invert this reality, and
having done so we can see that what has been inverted is just as
much "reality" as that which came before. There is no mistaking
the fact that the country before urbanization was reality, and
that the country after urbanization has become the kind of
reality we now have. It is therefore assured that after inverting
the present reality (that is, after eradicating the cities and
doing away with their influence) the real country that remains
will immediately become reality.
And so, rather than saying "The reality is that the country no
longer exists," it is more accurate to say "If we remove the
presently existing 'urbanized country,' that which remains is in
reality the country itself."
I will say it once more: The real country is what remains after
we get rid of the cities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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