The fallacy of the progressive history view is even more apparent when we look at Korea. The rule of law, the main principle of a modern nation, has yet to take root in Korea, even today.
June 26, 2022
The following is from an article by Hiroshi Furuta, professor emeritus at Tsukuba University, which appeared in today's Sankei Shimbun titled " Russia and Korea: The Lie of "History Progresses.
This article also proves that he is one of the leading scholars in the postwar world.
It is a must-read not only for the Japanese people but for people worldwide.
Emphasis in the text, except for the headline, is mine.
Many people still believe that history progresses.
Humanity has progressed step by step while making repeated mistakes and will eventually reach an ideal society.
In the case of war, we have learned from the mistakes of World War I and World War II, and we hold the ideal that one day, we will be able to have a peaceful world without war and nuclear weapons.
Many people who say this are intellectuals and media, especially those appearing in newspapers and TV.
They try to discuss the world from the perspective of the history of progress, which says that society progresses through certain stages of development and that every country can and must modernize.
However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine proved that such people have been spreading the lie of progress.
Russia, which has experienced two world wars, the defeat of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, has launched another war of aggression, threatening not only Ukraine but also other countries with nuclear weapons.
In Ukraine, it is reported that Russia is looting, assaulting, slaughtering, raping, and sending people to camps, which is the same thing that the Soviet army that broke the Soviet-Japanese neutrality pact and invaded Manchuria at the end of World War II did to the Japanese.
Looking at this pre-modern behavior, one must say that Russia has not progressed in more than 100 years since the Russian Revolution of 1917.
However, those caught up in the progressive historical view do not understand this.
That is why Japanese so-called experts think things like, "I never thought they would invade Ukraine," but that is the reality of the situation.
The international rules of modern nations cannot explain President Putin's words and actions.
When he launched the invasion, he gave reasons such as "to overthrow the neo-Nazis in Ukraine and liberate the Russian people," which is the same level as South Korea's "The rising sun flag of Japan is militarism. It is the same level of flattery as the South Koreans saying, "The rising sun flag of Japan is militarism, and Japan is evil.
The Ephraimites of ancient Israel told the people of the land of Gilead, "Why didn't you call the Ephraimites for reinforcements when other nations invaded? So this time we are going to invade them." (The Book of Judges in the Old Testament).
President Putin's ideas seem closer to ancient times than to modern times.
Apart from the development of science, in a spiritual sense, the idea that Russia should want a modern society in the first place may be a self-serving assumption.
According to a survey, more than 60% of Russians consider the socialist era of the Soviet Union the best. Still, socialism can be viewed as a pseudo-ancient society because it has many elements similar to ancient societies, such as the class system, tyranny, and serfdom (communal farms).
It is similar to the Russian Empire, where the tsar and serfdom owned the land and were established under the tyranny of the tsar.
Enactment of the "Law for the Protection of the Moon Jae-in
The fallacy of the progressive history view is even more apparent when we look at South Korea.
The rule of law, which is the main principle of a modern state, has yet to take root in Korea.
The great principle of a modern nation is to keep the promises made to other nations, such as treaties.
Still, this nation has repeatedly rehashed issues already settled in the Japan-Korea Claims Agreement 1965.
Recently, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Korea, which is supposed to be the guardian of the law, ordered a Japanese company to pay compensation for the so-called "conscripts," wartime workers.
In South Korea, national unity is still not governed by the rule of law but by "anti-Japanese" education.
It may have been unavoidable at the dawn of Korea's independence from Japan.
However, more than 70 years later, the emotional argument of "anti-Japan" still precedes the rule of law.
Modern national leaders would be concerned about this reality and try to establish the rule of law, but in South Korea, the president, who is the head of state, tries to undermine the rule of law.
It is no secret that South Korea has a "tradition" of arresting the outgoing president by the next administration, but former President Moon Jae-in, while in office, amended the so-called "Moon Jae-in Protection Act" to prevent his arrest, depriving prosecutors of most of their investigative powers.
The progressive historical view cannot explain how such unthinkable things can happen in South Korea.
Many people hope that a new president, Yun Suk-yeol, will change South Korea and improve Japan-Korea relations, but I wonder if this is true.
It may sound as if I am writing something terrible about Russia or South Korea, but that is not the case.
I am simply saying that if you look at Russia and South Korea from the perspective of progressive history, which holds that any country can progress and modernize, you will find that this historical perspective is flawed.
Since Russia and South Korea are such countries, we have no choice but to accept them as they are.
If we treat them with the assumption that "Russia and Korea must become such countries," in light of the progressive historical view, we will be imposing our selfish ideals on them, which should be annoying to them.
Marx and his ilk are the last vestiges of a dream.
Progressive history was once the foundation for the Marxism of intellectuals, who believed that a nation arrives at the socialist ideal after historical progress.
In the past in Japan, intellectuals called "progressive culturists" used to occupy the Asahi Shimbun and other newspapers, bringing with them convenient examples from abroad that they considered ideal and saying, "Japan is lagging behind compared to this."
Still, in their minds, capitalism is inferior to socialism. The current capitalism is that they had the idea that they were progressing to the ideal of socialism, that they had to, and that it was a "historical inevitability."
It was not only those who called themselves communists or socialists.
In his lecture notes, Maruyama Masao, one of the leading postwar intellectuals, also taught the historical inevitability of the transition from bourgeois revolution to proletarian revolution in the tradition of the Marxist school (a school of Japanese Marxists).
(Ken Yonehara, "Maruyama Masao and Socialism," Shiso, No. 988, August 2006)
I believe that the socialist ideal attracted Japanese intellectuals because it counteracted the inferiority complex of the Japanese people, who restarted as a capitalist backward nation after the war.
After losing the war to the U.S., Japan followed the capitalist path behind the U.S. politically and economically, which meant that the Japanese intellectuals who followed in its footsteps were also followers and immature.
In order to escape from this inferiority complex, they pursued the ideal of socialism, which was different from that of the U.S.
I believe that the intellectuals who came from a defeatist war complex were not the same as those in the U.S.
The flip side of the anti-American sentiment of the intellectuals comes from their defeat complex.
As expected, the socialism of aging progressive cultural figures has lost its influence. However, the progressive historical view itself is still alive, and the lives of the older men who believed its lies and fell in love with it to the bone will no longer return.
Recently, Fusako Shigenobu, a top leader of the Japanese Red Army, was released from prison after serving a 20-year sentence. The Japanese Red Army, which believed in Marxism and committed acts of socialist revolution, such as firing guns at random, killing innocent people, and hijacking, are also children of the progressive view of history.
Summer grasses、All that remains、Of Marx's dream.
The progressive view of history is sinful.
2024/8/8 in Fukuyama
