Down with the Cities!

and the

f the cities' activities - is unavoidable. We also learned that urban pollution is at the same time the polluti

f pollution than we can count on two hands, and that the city is the sole perpetrator of t

ese Archipelago

that is clearly its own - to others, insisting that the pollution is the product of the science civilization or that it is

t into the rivers and lakes; as long as the country belongs to the civilized state, it cannot escape the fact that it is an accomplice. Thus saying, the city attempts to

is is not at all con

all, but a fake, a red herring meant to keep us from seeing the truth. The real country is what is left after we have remo

on, smoke cigarettes, eat processed foods, burn petroleum, use electric lights, and read the newspaper, they are living a life that would be impossible without the city; this is therefore what

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

ty. We must recognize reality as

Invisibl

ality" 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. I

ists," it is more accurate to say "If we remove the presently existing '

real country is what remains

from the city we will consider it an unexpected blessing since it is only human beings who ruin their health by eating too much salt (we never hear of wild animals ingesting too much salt and damaging their health); if shoes stop coming from the city we will make sandals out of straw; if aluminum sashes and bricks stop coming from the city we can build sunken huts with logs and straw; if there is no electricity we wil

ealth- and Prospe

other than the contrast between extravag

ly), and has found it necessary to discard the immortal virtue, alive in China since long ago, that "Wealth is evil, ind

ame level of modernization as the developed countries, it will be time for humanity to pay the fiddler. If, for example, 90 percent of China's one billion people, in their quest for ease and gluttony (i.e., modernization, wealth, and prosperity), come to live in the cities, they will demand an incredible amount of resources, and create an equally inc

we find everyone insisting that they won't listen to anything like "Let's now wear straw sandals instead of shoes," or "Let's continue to wear straw san

re consider them beneficial. However, should you eat too many you'll get sick, an

food), and cannot continue to exist even one day without it. But the country, even if it does not depend upon the city, can always continue to live as long as it depends upon na

on the Distinction B

un

here is no money, the country will continue to exist. Unles

nd its activities would cease. This is not an empty argument, for in Cambodia the Pol Pot regime demonstrated that it can be done. The use of money was prohibited, and the people were forced to conduct business by barter. Immediately the city people went from farming village to farming v

ave no money, things will be peaceful. But perhaps it would be better to express it this way: If we have no money things will b

ally the farmers did everything for themselves, supplying their own food, clothing, and shelter. They wove cloth, and they made sandals. They dug wells, and they thatched roofs. They made ropes, and they gathered firewood. Not

of the arteries and high blood pressure. There is plenty of salt contained in natural foods; Nature, I expect, made human beings the same way it made squirrels and monkeys. * * * Since the city depends mainly for its existence upon nonrenewable underground resources, its functions will of course be paralyzed, and

first and foremost, it is money that the city uses to plunder the country for food. As I have said time and again, the city itself is nonproductive, and cannot supply its own food. It cann

onment, and it is the country that lives by being in accord with the flow of Nature. This is the decisive difference between th

ams, then makes its way to rivers, and then into the ocean, where it evaporates. Rising into the sky it forms clouds, and falls once again on the Land, starting the cycle anew. Parents give birth to children, children to grandchildren; from seed to seed the relay of Life

ycle is eternity itself. [23] It is therefore not a mistak

e Substance of the C

pment or improvement. In Nature there is no "progress." The biological idea of evolution is adaptation to the environment, and is different from progress. For example, the functioning of human brains and hands has advanced, whereas the sensitivity of our ears, eyes, and noses has regressed. These chan

I will do the same. And next year I will no doubt do it again. It only stands to reason that if the cycle of Nature never changes, a kind of agriculture that is closely joined to the cycle is also eternally unchanging (needless to say, I sp

nation, and stagnation means an irrevocable loss. The more the city becomes aware of the inevitable future awaiting it after the depletion of its resources, the more it tortures itself with worry. The cities then fight among themselves, each trying to grab more resources than the others, thus hastening their own demise by frantic squandering. M

e said for people who make their living by getting the attention of the world with literature and painting, for they are always thrashing about wildly, trying to find a new style, or trying to breathe newness into things. This quest for novelty ultimately leads to poetry and prose and pictures t

reeching about such things as Creativity, Challenge, Freedom, Individuality, and Progress. If they just sit aro

ts fearsome advance with the entire society in tow (an effect produced in combinat

ress and development (by accepting the intervention of the secondary and tertiary industries) in spite of this relationship with the natural cycle, then it is not at all surpri

affluent, then we must pay a terrible price for that affluence. In