The continuing crisis (not Covid-19)

I mentioned last week that I had liked parts of an esoteric book by DT Suzuki about Swedenborg.  Actually, it was mainly the translator's introduction, which gave a short account of the cultural concern in Japan in the early 20th century, as the nation came to the end of the Meiji era with its rapid industrialisation and social changes.

I thought it serves as a good reminder that:

a.  worrying about cultural and social change, as is common in the Western world today, is something that has been around a long time, and is shared by countries that don't have a Christian background.  (I generally like to think that the increasing number of atheists and agnostics in the West is a long lingering effect of the scientific revolution of Darwin, and the discovery of the vast age and size of the universe - remembering that the very nature of galaxies was only realised less than 100 years ago - but Eastern nations whose religion did not carry a key creation creation story had the same social worries); and/or

b. maybe at every period in history, people worry that things are changing for the worse and that they are in the midst of cultural or societal degradation of one kind or another.

Anyway, at the risk of upsetting a publisher, I am just going to cut and paste some relevant pages, and sorry about the size difference (I might try to fix this up later):

There's a gap now, but here's another high profile Japanese suicide from the period:

Well, I had not heard of either the famous suicidal teenager, or General Maresuke killing himself as a sign of loyalty to his boss.

Here's a different translation of the angsty teenager Misao's suicide poem, from Wikipedia:

Thoughts on the precipice

How immense the universe is!
How eternal history is!
I wanted to measure the immensity with this puny five-foot body.
What authority has Horatio's philosophy?^*
The true nature of the whole creation.
Is in one word – “unfathomable”.
With this regret, I am determined to die.
Standing on a rock on the top of a waterfall.
I have no anxiety.
I recognize for the first time.
Great pessimism is nothing but great optimism. 

I don't know - I guess you had to be in Japan at the time to understand why this would cause a sensation.   Also, as I have noted above, this guy is fretting about the size of the universe before scientists even had a clue as to how big it really was.    And that last line if a bit too Zen paradox-y for my taste. 


There is more from the book I want to talk about, but later.