| The Dignity of the Nation Fujiwara Masahiko Chapter 2 Logic Alone Will Drive the World to Ruin 1. Elementary school kids playing the market ? 2. English in elementary school ? 3. Topics of the true elite 4. Content more important than English 5. The most important things cannot be explained logically 6. Is murder bad ? 7. Logic needs a starting point 8. How to deal with a bread thief 9. One and zero do not exist in the real world 10. Teaching " baseness " ・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・ 1. Elementary school kids playing the market ? When the American elite came up with this idea, it was not their intention to wreck the English of the American people. It was the conclusion that they reached after a great deal of serious thought. Stock market investment is now being taught at some twenty thousands American elementary and jnior high schools. American educationalists are quite pleased with what they have done. " Elementary school children are now reading the economics section in the newspaper, " they enthuse. And that' not all; " Some children have even started running an eye over the stock price listings; " " Their eyes have been opened up to the real world." I don't know what the appropriate English expression is, but in Japanese we would say; " There's no medicine that will cure a fool." 2. English in elementary school ? I have said some unkind things about the United States, but the situation is not much different here in Japan. For example, English is now being taught at more than nine- tenths of all the elementary- schools in Japan. Teaching English at elementary- school level is, in my opinion, the surest way to ruin the country. English is nothing more than a means of communicating, but to become a person who can function on an international level. the first thing you need is a thorough mastery of the Japanese language. It does not matter if your English is faltering or accented. The content - what you say - is everything. Studying Japanese properly and, most important of all, reading books are indispensable to enriching that content. 3. Topics of the true elite The top- flight elite in the West consists mostly of cultivated people. They will never ask you about English history or Shakespeare. Instead they come at you with extremely detailed questions on Japanese culture and history. The conversation will never really take off if you have not acquired the knowledge appropriate to a Japanese. 4. Content more important than English There is no time available for teaching English as part of elementary education. The most important subject at that stage is Japanese. Children should read many books and get a thorough grounding in Japanese history and traditional culture. This sort of education will revive the culture of print and the culture of reading; it will also give people something to talk about. This may not be the shortest route, but it certainly is the best one to create genuinely international people. 5. The most important things cannot be explained logically Depending on logic alone leads to failure because most of the things that people regards as truly important defy logical explanation. If logic were enough to explain everything important, then teaching logic - and nothing else - ought to be enough. That, however, is not the case. This fact was proven mathematically by the Austrian mathematician Kurt Godel who demonstrated his incompleteness theorem in 1931. Very roughly, incompleteness theorem states that any series of axioms, no matter how splendid they may be, contains propositions whose correctness cannot be logically proven. Godel thus proved that it is not possible to judge if someting is corret or incorrect even in mathematics, which is thought to be so perfect and flawless a science. 6. Is murder bad ? There are things that logic is unable to explain even in the world of mathematics. This is much more the case in the everyday world, where things that cannot be explained by logic are, if anyting, the norm. Ten years ago, towards the end of a conference of the Japanese teachers' union, a high school student who was auditing the proceedings asked the teachers why killing someone was wrong. Of the teachers present, not one was able to provide a logical explanation. There is no logical reason why killing people is wrong. If it is only a question of logic, then there is limitless number of reasons on both sides of the question. " It's wrong, so you should't do it. " To me, that is sufficient explanation of why killing people is wrong. That's it, the end of the discussion. Logic, as you can see, is unable to expain even things that seem to be crystal- clear. 7. Logic needs a starting point Logic also fails because logic always needs a starting point. Starting point A, is always a hypothesis, never a logical conclusion. This hypothesis is not chosen through logic, but primary according to the emotions of the person making the choice. The emotion can be described as a person's all-round strength of character at a stage preceding logic. Emotions consist of a mixture of many things. When selecting the starting point, the traditions and the forms of behavior derived from religion and custom cannot be ignored. The samurai sprit includes various forms of behavior like this. There is a range of forms such as compassionate empathy, contempt for baseness, respect for honor, sincerity, and justice. Christianity and Islam also have their own superb, unique forms. The starting point for logic is often chosen based on such forms of behavior that have their origins in culture. It is not logic, but emotions and forms that determine our selection of the starting point for our logic. 8. How to deal with a bread thief Let us take a simple example of a man who has had nothing to eat for a week. He goes into town, and when he gets to the baker's at the corner, he grabs a loaf of bread on an impulse and runs off, gobbling it down as he goes. The starting point of the first person is that Japan is a nation of laws, and his conclusion is to hand the thief over to police. The starting point for the second person is to feel pity for " the poor fellow ", and his conclusion to pretend to have seen nothing and pass by. Both responses are consistent in their logic, but they reach different conclusions because their starting points were different. In conclusion then, logic is important, but the choice of the starting point for that logic is the most decisive factor. 9. One and zero do not exist in the real world In the logic of the everyday world, neither one nor zero exist. Nothing is absolutely true, nor is anything absolutely false. Nothing is completely black or white. Take the statement " killing people is wrong " as an example. This is not completely white. For a start, there is the system of the death penalty, meaning that murder within the framework of the law is seen as acceptable. Then in a war, the person who kills the greatest number of the enemy is universally hailed as a hero. Even honesty, which is normally regarded as a virtue, is not a virtue under all circumstances. There are plenty of occasions when you should not speak the truth or when you are forced to tell a lie. For me, this seems to happen most frequently with my wife. 10. Teaching " baseness " What steps should we take to deal with bulling ? Rather than treat the symtoms by providing counselors, what we need to do is teach the concept of baseness in accordance with the samurai spirit. If we really want to reduce bullying, we have to get the point across that for a number of people to gang up on one individual is base. It makes no difference if the children doing the bullying are pure and beautiful and have right on their side, while the child being bullied is a twisted character and a horrendous liar. The philosophy of baseness goes beyond mere logic and simply maintains that " it is wrong because it's wrong. " In life, it is important not to be bamboozled by logic. To : Index To Chapter 3 : Freedom, Equality, and Democracy Questioned |