アイスランド―金融危機から他国による地形破壊まで

アイスランドはヨーロッパで最も広い面積の原生地をもつ国家。人口は３０万人で、まだ独立してから７１年しか経っていない。2008年9月29日から同年10月６日まで、8日間の間で金融危機が起こった。この速度もすごいが、規模もまたすごく、この8日間の間でアイスランドは2007年のGDPの7倍以上の負債を抱えていることが発覚し、国民総生産対負債の比では経済史上最大の危機だった。

この危機の直後に、オバマ大統領は金融機関を国民の血税で救済することは今後二度としないという演説を行ったらしい。日本やアメリカにいると、「金融危機」の最近の例としてはサブプライム住宅ローン危機ばかりが話題にのぼる。たしかに、日本やアメリカの経済に直接影響を与えているという点ではこちらの方が身近な例なので、それは仕方ない。

他方で、負債発覚から事実上デフォルトまでの速度、また危機の規模、そしてその後のアイスランドへの海外企業の侵入の仕方などをみると、アイスランドの金融危機の方が遥かに注目に値する気がする。ヨーロッパの国、例えばギリシアやアイルランドにとっては、こちらの危機の方が話題にのぼるのかもしれない。将来自国にも起こりうることだからだ。

アイスランド金融危機がどのようにして引き起こされ、それがアイスランド国民の生活にどのような影響を与えたのかについては、ウィキペディアにかなり詳細にわたる優れた記事がある。

ことの発端は、2001年にアイスランドの銀行が規制緩和されたこと。これによって、海外の投資家から短期融資を受けることができるようになった。規制緩和されたからといって新規の融資を得なくてもよいのではないか、などと考えるのは甘い。増資を行う銀行が一つでもあれば、競争原理に従って他も増資しなければ生き残れなくなる―資本主義とはそういうもので、例えば『資本論』第2巻の前半にこの必然性が詳しく書いてある。

ともかく、海外からの融資を受け、国内では新しい巨大産業を立ち上げようという動きが始まる。そして、2004年にはアメリカに拠点を置く巨大アルミニウム製品製造企業「アルコア」がアイスランドに侵入、世界一のアルミニウム製錬所を製造する。

ちなみに、アルコア問題辺りからアイスランド国民の反発が強くなり、デモが毎週のように行われた。音楽家のビョークは積極的に国の政治について発信しているし、国内でも草の根活動を行った。ビョークの活動や記事を追うだけでも、2001年以降のアイスランドの急激な変化をかなり実感することができるし、アイスランドが現在置かれている状況がヨーロッパの他の国にとって他人事ではないということがわかる。

金融危機以降、海外資本と国民の血税とによってアイスランド政府は銀行の救済した。救済も一筋縄ではいかなかった。例えば、「Icesave bill 2」ではイギリスとオランダへのアイスランドの借金返済の期限を無期限にするという条件が含まれており―これによって、アイスランドは数十年もこれらの国の資本家たちのいいなりになる可能性もあった―なんとこれはアイスランド政府によって可決されたのだが、その後国民投票で否決された。さらにその後も「Icesave bill 3」が国民投票で再び否決され、この件は国同士の交渉ではなくEFTA裁判の問題として扱われることになる。そして、EFTAはアイスランドにはイギリスとオランダからこのような融資を受ける義務はないという判決を下した。（これによってアイスランドは上記の負債地獄の可能性から一時的に解放される。）

しかし、他方でアイスランド政府は多額の献金を海外企業から受け取っていた。その一つが、2010年にアイスランドに地熱発電所と水力発電所を大量に新設しようとした「マグマ」(Magma)社である。この会社は現在「アルテーラ」(Alterra)に吸収されている。

こうした発電所を新設する理由は、先述したアルミニウム製錬所を動かすための電力の供給をするためだった。国民にとっては必要のない新たな収入をつくるために、国民にとって利益もなくまた国土には一方的に負担を与えるだけの大規模な製錬所を建設し、今度はこの製錬所を動かす電力がないからと言って大規模な地熱発電所に加えダムを8個も新設する―短期間でアイスランドの国土を破壊する動きにアルコアとアルテーラが乗り出したわけだ。なぜこのようなことになったのかといえば、銀行の規制緩和に伴う海外資本の侵入が全てである。

金融危機以後、アイスランドでは失業率が上がり、ものすごいインフレーションも起きた。こうして被害を受けた国民の「ため」にと、政府はアメリカやカナダの大企業の侵入を許しているらしい―「雇用の創出」である。しかし、実際には、例えば発電所の建設や運営は中国から安く雇われた移民労働者によって行われるらしい。アイスランド人の雇用は増える見込みがないわけである。アルコアもアルテーラも、このことを承知の上でアイスランドに侵入している。（これについても、ビョークが当時のマグマ社の社長と交わした往復書簡に詳しいことが書いてある。ちなみに、マグマ社によるオルカ社買収については、ビョークが反対署名運動を開始し、わずか数日でアイスランド国民の１０％が署名をした。その後、一時的に買収は先延ばしにされたが、2011年に完了してしまった。）

現在、アイスランド政府はアルコアに製錬所の建設を許し、アルテーラに国内一の電力会社の株の90％以上を所有されている。ダムの新設は進んでいる。さらに、これだけでは飽き足らず、政府は国立公園の面積を狭めようとまでしている。

この状況で、アイスランドの国土と原生地を守るためにできることは非常に限られているが、全くないわけではない。

（１）長期的には、アイスランドへの海外企業の侵入を防ぐ法律を立法していく必要がある。これはアイスランド国内の法律の専門家が行うしかない。

（２）短期的には、製錬所、ダム、発電所の新設を頓挫させる必要がある。アイスランド国民に限らず、世界の活動家が協力できる運動はこれだと思う。一度原生地が破壊され、ダムによって水の流れが変えられてしまえば、それを元に戻すことは不可能になる。それから立法しても遅い。そのため、この短期目標に全てがかかっている。

具体的には、建設に携わる労働者のストライキを促す。人が動かなければ作業も進まなくて済む。このプロジェクトに関わる労働者の人数は約2000人と言われているが、一年間で2000人の労働者の生活費を保障するためには約4000万ユーロ（54億円）が必要となる。集めるのが不可能な金額ではない。労働者の作業を停止させる方法は私には今のところ他に浮かばない―知識も理論も不足しているのが悔やまれる。

他方で、（ビョークの受け売りだけれど）環境問題をネガティヴな問題としてのみ考えるのは良くない。不可逆的な行為は防ぐべきだが、同時にアイスランドにどう収益をもたらすのかを考える必要もある。

アイスランドには、昨年は国民の二倍の人数の観光客が訪れている。ビョークだけでなく、シガー・ロスのようなバンドや、オラフ・オラフソンのような作家の影響も大きいだろう。一番大きいのは、アイスランドの独特の原生地と街並みだろう。つまり、工場をつくらない、発電所やダムをつくらないというのは、ネガティヴなだけではなく、観光産業を拡大するためのポジティヴな条件でもある。羊毛や海鮮を使って色々な仕事を始めることもできるだろう。スタートアップをするためには、必ずしも資本主義的になる必要はない。ただし、アイスランドでは現在色々と法的な規制があって、こうした小規模の起業がしにくくなっているらしい。こうした法律を変えることが大切。それも環境保護運動になるわけである。

The Thessaloniki Proposal

In Greece, SYRIZA drafted the Thessaloniki Programme back in September 2014. Prior to this, the coalition released 40 points on policy reform back in May 2012.

Reading these proposals, one is first of all struck by how sane and reasonable they all are. The bottom line principles of these proposals are crystal clear:

(1) Debtors who have no money cannot repay their debts anyway; instead of forcing them to commit suicide, therefore, better let them survive and have them repay gradually.

(2) Researchers who have the skills to contribute to the Greek economy are emigrating rapidly due to lack of job prospects in Greece; therefore, invest in the public sector and hire these skilled workers.

(3) Increased crime rates can also be an economic burden; therefore, take precautionary measures by assuring human rights are protected.

(4) The biggest potential source of revenue for the Greek state is the group of corporations who are making the most profit; therefore, tax these corporations the most heavily.

These are perfectly sensible principles, and their scope seems quite modest. As financial minister Yanis Varoufakis writes in this article, one important priority in Greece at this moment is to prevent brutal, large-scale upheavals. Varoufakis knows very well, as any good historian should, that poverty combined with a hopeless, futureless social system, including most of all a dysfunctional state apparatus, is a dangerously fertile soil for irrational, violent nationalism, or even a coup -- although the last might be less likely in Greece compared to other European states.

These modest suggestions by SYRIZA, however, clearly go against the implicit rules of today's capitalism. Multi-national conglomerates are no longer tied to one particular state; they can jump from one state to the next based on the principle of profitability. The logic of credit and debt is the primary ethical system for those in power such as shareholders, bankers, and CEOs. "Responsibility to shareholders" trumps any other responsibility, including that to millions of ordinary good citizen workers -- who, more often than not, are forced into overwork. And for what? For helping these conglomerates to accumulate profit, so that they might buy up more businesses and "expand." Within the rules of this game, welfare states do not stand a chance of winning, since the latter are emphatically not interested in squeezing out the last drop of labor out of every citizen for the sake of handing over profit to shareholders and helping businesses to keep on expanding their scale.

Traditionally, when corporations still had to base themselves in a particular country and operate under a particular state, governments and laws had the power to tame the logic of profit-making and debt-collection through various measures - mostly the same as the ones proposed by SYRIZA. The problem with today's capitalism is that, if one country decides to tax big businesses for the sake of social welfare, the former simply moves to another, more "profitable" state. In order for the welfare state to work, therefore, all governments around the world must introduce the same level of regulations against corporations. Therefore, there is the familiar free-riders problem. If all governments do turn into welfare states except for one country, corporations who are making the most money would go to this one country. The irony is that although this one country might gain more tax revenues relative to all the others (not because corporations are paying more, but because they are not paying at all to the others), the absolute amount of money which can be spent by the state decreases quite drastically, which is bad news for ordinary citizens who struggle to make a living (the "99%" referred to in the Occupy movement.)

Therefore, what is perhaps most challenging for the current SYRIZA government is to implement point 9 in the proposal: "Combat the banks’ secret [measures] and the flight of capital abroad." Obviously, there is little that can be done to incentivize corporations to stay in countries that are going to take 75% of the income of their top executives in tax. Therefore, the Greek government is left with no other option but coercion. Here, again, there is a risk of a different kind of barbaric backlash. Nonetheless, at least the SYRIZA government is not only more reasonable in terms of their strategy of debt repayment than the previous government, but also displays clearly its care for the Greek citizens, a display desperately needed in a country where suicide rates have risen since the introduction of "unscientific" austerity measures.

Black Notebooks and Technological Fabrication

Heidegger's Schwarze Heifte ('Black Notebooks') were published in 2014 as part of his collected works. Many scholars have reacted to this and have given talks and conferences, written texts online and in academic journals, etc. The Chair of the German Heidegger Society resigned because of the contents of this new publication.

The English translation of the Schwarze Heifte is forthcoming. Meanwhile, scholars have translated passages by themselves and have read them in public in various occasions (such as here and here). The empirically ridiculous statements in the SH aside, the main theoretical problem is (as far as I can see from these very limited number of passages translated into English via the world wide web) the mind's relation to technological fabrication (or 'technologische Machenschaft').

As Zizek points out here, the true problem with Heidegger's anti-Semitic remarks is that it purports to be the logical consequence of a certain line of rigorous philosophical thinking. According to Zizek's interpretation (which sounds pretty uncontroversial given what the passage which he quotes actually is), for Heidegger, the horror that took place in concentration camps were the self-reference of the logic of modern technological fabrication. For Heidegger, the figure of the Jew is the embodiment of this logic, and thus the systematic and total dehumanization of the Jewish people in the Nazi concentration camps was a kind of material manifestation of a logical self-reference. The horrible implication of this conclusion is that, if the concentration camps were inhuman and demonic, then that is actually the inhumanity and demonicness of the figure of the Jew, for the latter is, according to Heidegger, the embodiment of this inhuman and demonic logic.

I think that the problem with Heidegger's line of thought here should be traced back to his way of characterizing the 'way of being' called technologische Machenschaft. The most pressing question here seems to be to be this: What is it in Heidegger's theory of technologische Machenschaft that transcendentally constitutes the figure of the Jew in such a way as to make the train of thought cited by Zizek appear plausible?

This is not an easy question, but I think that it sets the tone appropriately, as it were. For the time being, I will let it stay.

Meanwhile, a more naive question also arises in response to the excerpts from the Schwarze Heifte: Is modern technological fabrication really so inhuman and demonic? Although Heidegger is not one of those who fall prey to the paranoid thought that "machines are taking over humans," nonetheless the feeling that this is so motivates much of anti-technology statements and movements. The alternative to technology is, to put it clumsily yet straightforwardly, "stay human," which means to stay "rooted" in "nature" or in the "nation" and to try and "overcome" the automatizing process of not only electronic but also social technology, the latter being exemplified in modern bureaucracy.

One way of criticizing this paranoia is to look at the distinction between avant-garde and kitsch. At the emotional level, this distinction is precisely captured in the early Heidegger's thought of authentic and inauthetic being-towards-death: kitsch is inauthentic, falling prey, while avant-garde is authentic, anticipatorily resolute. Taking sides on this dichotomy does not work. The fault of authenticity is that the dimension of being-with (Mit-sein) is radically lacking, while the fault of inauthenticity is that it lacks individuality. I think the solution is pop. Pop is neither avant-garde nor kitsch. It is universal (pop speaks to everyone) and individual (pop has an element irreducible to general notions) at the same time.

Perhaps one way of theorizing about technological fabrication is to make the theory pop. Pop is often associated with commercialism and vulgarity, but this is a cheap and hasty move. There is no necessary connection between these. In fact, movements such as punk in music, Dogme 95 in film, and new academism in critical theory are anti-commercial, founded on an unambiguous rejection of vulgarity. So this is a place to start.

On the other hand, technological fabrication does become a serious problem from the point of view of universal welfare and basic rights. The robotics industry is right now aiming to sell robots to smaller businesses. Their rationale is that, by doing so, "human resources can be moved to those industries which allow them to produce more surplus value." Outside the context of economics, this idea sounds great: more humans freed from the toil of drudgery. Yet in the present economic and welfare system, it means a new layer of anxiety for the poor. Those who managed to barely survive by selling their unskilled labor at the minimum wage on the 'precarious' job market will no longer be able to find new work. In this sense, robots really are taking over humans -- or, to be more exact, robot developers and sellers are. (Although it is always also important to remember that the rich are not necessarily in a better state compared to the poor; the compulsion to amass wealth, as well as the injunction to enjoy, can easily lead the person into a vortex of anxiety and misery.)

It would be ideal if governments implemented new safety nets, perhaps a basic income system of some kind. However, this is clearly hoping too much, and it might even be possible to show that it is "logically" -- or according to the logic of private property, profit, investment, and debt, the logic of capitalism -- impossible. The alternative is for individuals to find a way to survive. One crucial issue is how to relate to gifts. There is an overproduction of basic necessities such as food, shelter, and pharmaceutical goods. The form of their distribution is through the capitalist economy, whose ideology is that what is "bought" is what is rightfully earned, while what is merely "received" as a "gift" is not. Buying and selling allows the parties involved to forget about the transaction, while a gift leaves an emotional trace which accumulates over time. Although on the surface the transaction may appear to be over, in reality the giver controls the given through his power to withdraw his gift and deprive his pet of basic necessities. The phenomenon is captured visually in Lars Von Trier's Dogville. The potential threat of being totally subjugated to the command of the giver haunts the given, and this illusion is the power of the gift. The question, then, is this: could there be a form of material transaction which is neither buying-selling nor gift-giving? Perhaps this?

FUKUSHIMA / 福島

FUKUSHIMA UPDATE published an entry a few days ago about how the United States is banning the import of food products made in Japan unless they pass physical tests.

U.S. Restricts Some Japan Food Imports Over Contamination Concerns

Japanese food stores are selling seafood and dairy made in Fukushima (and other surrounding prefectures in the Tohoku area) on a daily basis. People in Japan are buying them. The gap between the U.S.'s and Japan's perception of the situation is quite big and shocking.

Until recently, I had been working as a teacher at an English language school in central Japan. I taught kids under 12 and adult classes. One student from one of the adult classes one day wrote in his English diary that he had cancer. It was a bladder cancer and he had to get an operation. The man was still in his late 30s. The operation succeeded, thank goodness.

Even if I avoided buying food made in Tohoku, it could still enter my diet via processed food. Many Japanese workers have a habit of buying their lunch and dinner at a restaurant or a convenience store. Neither restaurants nor convenience stores have the obligation to show where their food came from.

When I worked at a farm in Ibaraki back in the summers of 2011 and 2012, the farm owner told me many stories of how brokers traveled around the Tohoku area and northern Ibaraki to buy up all the contaminated crops at a ridiculously cheap price.

Why did the farmers choose to sell their contaminated crops? Did they not know that they were putting people at risk?

The tragedy is that they did know, but then they perceived themselves (partly correctly) as victims, and that perception justified, at least in their own eyes, their irrational decisions. Many full-time farmers are farmers by birth, and it is their duty to protect their house and land. A farmer who cannot sell his or her crops is like a writer who cannot sell books, or a songwriter who cannot sell songs. Not because the crops, songs, and books are unpopular, but because of a sudden, totally unreasonable event like the Fukushima accident.

As a person who writes and publishes translated texts, to bring it home, I would imagine the situation as follows. I worked on a book for a year, working like crazy every day for hours and hours. The book is finally ready. Then, suddenly, scientists discover that every time a person looks at the letter "e" that person's life expectancy diminishes by one minute. Therefore, anyone who reads a book written in English risks dying a few months earlier. Reading 10 books per year might then cut your life expectancy to half. That means that people in Japan would die at around 45 years old. Which is pretty shocking. But then, as a translator who worked on something which I believe is worthwhile reading, what should I do? Just let the project go? And since any book will cause people to shorten their lives, I would not be able to translate anything anymore. What should a translator do then?

Something similar happened to the farmers in Tohoku on March 11, 2011.

No wonder, then, that many committed suicide. Just trying to imagine how they must have felt makes me feel slightly nauseous. I honestly cannot understand how exactly they must have been feeling. I don't think the farmer who told me these stories understands how the suicides felt, either.

More than four years have passed since then, and little has changed. Farmers still sell their products to brokers, and brokers sell these privately in shopping malls and to food factories. The brokers do it for the money. The farmers do it out of desperation to keep sane and keep on living.

Right now in Japan, the government is doing a very good job at convincing the people that those who criticize TEPCO and nuclear power plants are simply "paranoid" and "ultra-leftist." Such convenient labels.

Before teaching at an English school, I also taught junior high and high school students privately. I would ask them what they think about Fukushima, and quite a few of them answered that those who worry too much are "paranoid."

The sad truth is that it is really quite impossible to live sanely if you worried about radioactivity every day. And yes, paranoia does exist. When citizens of Fukushima evacuated from their hometowns and moved south, many people in Tokyo, Kyoto, etc. hung banners off their apartment balconies which said something like: "Go Back to Fukushima! Don't Bring In Radioactivity Here!" That is paranoia.

It is not paranoia, however, to wonder whether the food made in Tohoku is safe. And it is not paranoia to try and avoid it, especially to try and avoid feeding it to infants and young children.

Living in Japan, I can feel the constant anxiety in the air ever since the disaster. Something has definitely changed. It's very important not to go into denial. Remember that farmers and fishermen in Tohoku are still struggling to come to terms with what has happened. The way foreign countries react to Fukushima today gives me a much better idea of the reality of the situation than the propaganda that the Japanese media and government are spreading.

さらにもう一つショッキングな事実がある。震災から４年も経過しているのに、いまだに福島県で25,000人以上、宮城県で30,000人以上が仮設住宅に住んでいる。そもそも仮設住宅は「仮設」なわけで、老朽化の進みが速い。私は現地にはもうしばらく行っていないので、地元の方々の声を把握できていない。それなので、具体的に何が理由で55,000人以上もの人たちが仮設から出ることができていないのかもわからない。

2012年夏に宮城県を訪れた際にみたのは、経済的な理由に加え、地元への愛着があって移住ができない人たちだった。土地への愛着は老若男女問わずある―例えば、14歳の男子が「将来市役所に勤めてこの市を回復させたい」と話していた。しかし、汚染水の管理も不安定では、宮城県の海沿いの地域や、福島県の東側などは、到底帰郷できるような状態ではない。

政府がいかに手段を尽くしたところで、特に福島県の原発半径20キロ圏内にはもう人は住めないだろう。この現実を地元の人たちに伝えるのは容易ではない。震災から4年が経つが、4年でこの現実を呑みこめるものだろうか。

しかし、こうした現実を伝えようとするどころか、日本政府は2017年までにすべての福島県民が帰郷できるようにする、などと公言している。辛い状況にある被災者たちならばまだしも、東京で以前とほとんど変わらない生活を送っている人たちが現実逃避をしている。ただ、これは単なる現実逃避ではなく、TEPCOや日本政府、原子力安全委員会などの責任を軽くするための現実逃避であると考えた方がよいかもしれない。

復興庁によれば、原発周辺の町の住人の内、帰郷したいと考える人の割合は約10％らしい。これは先日多和田葉子さんの朗読会で印象深かったことの一つなのだが、多和田さんは福島のあるお年よりからこういう話を聞いたと言った―「地元には帰りたい。家にも戻りたい。しかし、孫のいない家には戻りたくない。孫たちが遊びに来てくれるような家でないといけない。しかし、自分の故郷は、孫を安心して呼べるようなところではもはやない。だから、帰りたくない。」　―汚染された土を土嚢のようにして積み上げる計画があるらしいが、これに対して、多和田さんは、この土嚢を烏や鼠が破り、土が静かに漏れ出すイメージを短い詩で表現した。このお年寄りが「帰郷」という言葉を思い浮かべるときに、同時に感じていることをイメージにするとしたらこういうイメージになるのかもしれない。

予算についても、当初の19兆円に、2013年にはさらに6兆円上乗せし、またさらに増額する動きもあり、結局30兆円近くなっている。田中康夫さんが指摘しているように、避難民に単純に分配すれば一人5000万円以上受け取れる。新しい家を建てることは必ずしもできなくても、5000万円あれば、お年寄りならば100歳まで生きることはできるだろうし、若者でも、新しいビジネスを始めたり、大学や大学院に行ったり、あるいは就職活動をしたりする余裕が得られる。仮設住宅に閉じ込められ、「いつか帰れるから、それまで我慢してくれ」などと政府に言われ続けるよりはよっぽど良いはずだ。

しかし、このような分配が行われない理由は二つありそうだ。一つ目は、単純なばらまきは納税者の支持を得づらい。税金というのは本当は国家の所有物であって、納めた時点でもう個人はこのお金と何のつながりも持たないはずなのだが、納税者の中には、「私のお金」という意識を捨てきれない人が案外多い。自分の利益や快楽のために大金を使うよりも、国家を通して国民の福祉に貢献する方が遥かに名誉なことだと思うが、そういう意識は現代のリベラルなイデオロギーの中では少数派なのだろう。二つ目は、ナオミ・クラインが「惨事便乗型資本主義」と呼ぶ現象が福島でも起きようとしているのではないか、ということ。投資家や外国の大企業にとって、福島のような惨事は未解決であった方が都合が良い―なぜそうなのかは『ショック・ドクトリン』に詳しく書いてある。そのため、巨額の予算を設定しつつ問題を未解決なままにしておくことは、政府にとっても企業にとってもとても大切な目標となる。

最近、鹿児島地裁は九州電力の有する川内原子力発電所の再稼動差し止めを却下した。原告は地元住人たち。対して、関西電力の高浜原発の差し止め処分は昨年5月に通っている。詳しい資料にアクセスできないのでなんとも言えないのだが、なぜこの二つの判決がこう異なるのかは気になる。

経済や利権、また与党の支持率維持、改憲問題など、色々な要素が絡まりあい過ぎていて、原発関連の人たちの言うことはとても直接鵜呑みにできるものではない―それは賛成派についても反対派についてもいえる。当人でなければわからないことも当然たくさんあるが、他方で、外からの視点でないとみえないものごともたくさんあるのではないかと思う。

逐語訳批判―鈴木直

日本ではアカデミズムの枠内にあるものを「哲学」、人間や社会の現実に関与するものを「思想」と称する傾向がある。カントは哲学で、マルクスは思想という具合だ。そしてほとんどの学生が関心を持っていたのは、哲学ではなく思想だった。
　　しかし、この言語習慣そのものが、日本の哲学への静かなる批判というべきだ。私も本書では、この二つの言葉を厳密に区別することなく併用しているが、個人的にはいつの日か、「哲学」という言葉が両方の意味合いをごく自然にあわせ持ち、外国語への翻訳が困難な「思想」という言葉が次第に死後となっていくことを願っている。

鈴木直『輸入学問の功罪』157ページ

翻訳批判の本はたくさん存在し、その多くはある訳文を選び出して欠点を挙げ連ね、筆者自身が改訳を載せる、といった流れだ。しかし、1ページに数個、一冊の本に数百個の誤訳があるのは当然なので、ごく一部をそこから抜粋して「読みづらい」だの「主格が誤訳されている」だの述べてみてもいまひとつ建設的でない。批判するならば、その翻訳作品全体の流れを一度肯定した上で批判をすべきだ。

そういった意味では、鈴木直氏の『輸入学問の功罪』には典型的な「部分的批判」が多く含まれている。しかし、他方で、とても大切な指摘もこの本には含まれている。まず、鈴木氏はマルクスの和訳の歴史を例に挙げ、1920年代の高畠訳の方が、その後の向坂訳などよりも読みやすく訳されているということを指摘する。これは面白い指摘である。さらに、その後、三木清が高畠訳に対して実に情けない批判をしているところを鈴木氏は引用する。これによって、逐語訳至上主義が三木のような反体制的な書き手によってでさえ奨励されていたと論じる。

その後、鈴木氏は逐語訳至上主義の源泉を当時のエリート高校生の精神状態から説明しようとするが、これも面白いながら、やや説得力に欠ける――たしかに、鈴木氏の引用する学生新聞の文には、高校生エリートたちの淋しさと、それを紛らすために飛び交う虚しい美辞麗句とが含まれている。ただ、実際にカントやヘーゲルなどの和訳にとりかかった特定の翻訳者たちがこうした文体や状況に支配されていたかどうかはわからない。そのため、逐語訳至上主義の背景の一要素としては高校生の精神状態を含めてもよいかもしれないが、ことの核心をここに求めるのは無理がある。

受験戦争によるエリート選別のシステムをもう一つの根拠として鈴木氏は挙げているが、こちらの方が説得力がある。いわゆる「俗な」一般人にはわからないような専門用語を多く知っていればいるほど受験にも有利であるし、選別をする方も、学生の記憶している専門用語の数で学生の能力を測るのは都合が良かったはずだ。そして、こうしたシステムを通して生まれたエリートは、そのシステムを再生産し拡大するために努力をするだろう。その結果、翻訳書は難解な逐語訳が好まれるようになるわけである。

私自身はエリート高校で自己形成を阻まれつつ虚しい生活を送った経験もなければ、受験戦争に加わった経験もない。それでもなお、逐語訳をしてしまいたいという誘惑に駆られることはある。私がそう感じる原因は、その方が手早く確実にミスを回避しつつ訳ができるからである。要するに手抜きだ。これに対して、文意を曲げずにかつ工夫を凝らして翻訳をする方がはるかに手間がかかる。体力も使う。そのため、逐語訳の誘惑に負けないように、いつもその危険を意識していなければいけない。そのことを鈴木氏の著作は再認識させてくれた。

『哲学の方法について』はまだまだ改善の余地があるので、近々推敲したいと思っている。

Terrence Malick

The New World

Pocahontas, Smith, and Rolfe. The film is a perfect visual expression of the truth of marriage. Smith the settler intrudes upon the Powatan territory, gets almost killed, and is saved by Pocahontas. Her decision to save Smith comes in a flash like a miracle, and she herself does not know why she is doing it. She throws her body upon Smith's and the ritual is broken. However, the Powatan social order is instantly recovered -- the center now shifts to Pocahontas, she is the new individual representative of the ethical substance. Thus, Smith is welcomed, deceptively naturally.

After a while, the utopian life of Smith with the Powatan community ends. It becomes now Pocahontas' turn to visit Smith's fortress and undergo the same conversion process. She is taught how to be an English woman, just as Smith was taught how to be a Powatan man.

Smith decides to leave, however, and Pocahontas is left in a permanent state of mourning. Rolfe approaches her and they eventually get married. However, Pocahontas' heart is not in it, and her detachment continues over many years. Rolfe bears with it. Yet when Pocahontas hears the news that Smith is still alive, she tells Rolfe clearly that she has always been "married" to Smith. "You don't understand what marriage means, do you?" asks Rolfe. At this point, Rolfe's remark sounds like a pathetic patronization by a pious Christian husband, and it probably really is just that.

Pocahontas and Smith meet again. Smith talks to Pocahontas, but Pocahontas stays silent and her expression hardens. At the end, she decides to go back to Rolfe and to her "home." It is not as if she had now stopped loving Smith; it was just that she really did decide to put herself into the other side, the external, seemingly dry and empty side of marriage, which really is its truth.

On one level, this truth is a very familiar one. Two people love each other, and yet in time they break up due to external circumstances. One then marries another person whom one does not necessarily love. After a while, the old lover returns. Until then, it seems as if there is a real conflict between love (the old lover) and marriage (the new partner). The decision of Pocahontas is to live with the partner rather than with the lover. Yet the partner becomes at the same time a lover -- although love was not explicit in their actions, the decision to live with the partner brings out the truth of these "empty" gestures, which is love. This is because love itself is, objectively speaking, totally empty. After all, neither Smith nor Pocahontas did anything out of the ordinary -- their seemingly exceptional conversions were fully re-integrated into their respective social order. Behind the absolutely romantic strings and scenery dominating the screen, this cold emptiness of love persists.

---

Days of Heaven

Bill, Abbey, the Farm Owner -- the story is about marriage and ethical love again, but this time with a twist: the narration is done by the teenage Linda.

There is a scene where Linda learns tap-dancing from her fellow farmer. As an empty vessel -- an eye detached from the body, to use Tawada's motif -- Linda's role is to observe and mimic.

The expressions of Linda and Abbey have a striking resemblance. Yet Abbey, unlike Linda, cannot be a pure eye, and she has to be part of the scene, in fact in the middle of it all. There is nonetheless a strange detachment that lets Abbey's position overlap with Linda's. Abbey is not attached to Bill, nor is she attached to Linda, nor to the Farm Owner. Things happen just before real attachment turns Abbey into a particular.

Antagonisms which exist in the worker-hirer relation or the husband-wife-lover relation are flattened out by the eyes of Linda.

---

The Thin Red Line

Oh Jack.

---

The Tree of Life

The film's structure is: First, there is the archetypical modern Christian family. Second, there is the sublime imagery of the creation of the world. Third, there is the hymns that weave the two together. The finale is the merging of the first with the second.

Depicting a misfortune is much easier compared to depicting fortune. The death of the second son is followed by the creation of the world, and the sublime-ness of the imagery almost entirely erases the mother's grief for her son. In this way the death sinks into the unconscious of the film, and it does not explicitly set the tone. What follows is a momentary illusion of pure good family life. And then the father enters, and everything starts to go wrong. This is true of the modern family. For the modern family, as a rule, the father is someone who is not needed, is only superfluous, to the family. The father, unable to realize his fantasies on his own, trains his sons to become his heir and to realize said fantasies. Yet the sons do not obey, and the father becomes utterly destroyed in his role as absolute authority.

Unlike the other films, here there is no grand decision. Everything just "happens" to the father, just as is the case with Job. In both cases, the "punishment" or "misfortune" is itself also redemption. The father does not receive anything in exchange for his paternal authority and fantasies. Giving them up is itself the gift.

Which is all very fine, but then the ending comes along. Family members move around like marionettes and act our their roles. The scene is clearly lacking in spirit and fantasy, it takes place in a dead land, where the inner and the outer merge. There is nothing in this scene, it is pure gesture. Then, this scene is followed by the mother's decision -- the only real decision -- to hand over her son to God. And then the screen goes dark, and a light flickers, hinting at the new beginning of a new world, which makes sense in the context of the preceding scene in its utter emptiness.

The film leaves the viewers off at a point where they actually are -- the modern Christian family fantasy is over, and a new light has just been lit; where to take it from here? The film does not say. I guess it nonetheless depicts the fortune in the misfortune.

Pina Bausch - Seriousness of Stupidity

A flashmob tribute to Pina produced by PARADA FILM

Dance is the expression of spirit through the body. It is an empirical expression of an a priori truth of spirit. A bad dance can be literally translated into words, because a bad dance is a dance which is translated from something already expressed in words. A good dance is an extension of language, and it cannot be literally translated into another medium. Language can provide the key to understanding the dance, but nothing more than a key. However, there are so many prejudices associated with dance, that it is perhaps worth spelling these prejudices out clearly and criticizing them carefully.

Vollmond is a collage of different expressions of joy.

『満月』は喜びの表現の断片の集合。英語ではAre you happy?やDid you enjoy?（挙句の果てにはEnjoy!という命令まで）が日常的に発せられる。「喜び」＝joyには、happinessやenjoyにあるような息苦しさがない。

上の断片では、水がたくさん飛んで気持ちよさそうだ。

水の動きまでコントロールされているような、水がただの自然物では全くなくなって、銀の液体となって踊るような―そういう風に水までみせている。岩も、自然界に存在する海辺の岩の再現というよりは、やはり何か金属のような得たいのしれない物体（むしろ舞台）としてそこに置かれている。

 

"Kontakthof" mitt Joy.

高校生の有志がピナの『コンタクトホーフ』を演じる。
楽しそうだ。メインダンサーの名も「ジョイ」。すてきな名前だ。

One (perhaps unresolvable) question haunting all art is the expression of stupidity. It is relatively easy to produce "moving" works of art. They tend to be clean, following the rules of artistic hygiene. This is what leads to escapism.

Pina often inserts sheer nonsense into her choreographs. For instance, Kontakhof opens with all the dancers advancing like this. There is no profound meaning behind this. It is just what it is. It is meant to be funny and meaningless.

This is what I really admire and respect about Pina Bausch's choreographs the most, that stupidity is allowed to freely enter and exist, come and go, throughout a serious piece. Moreover, Pina encourages us to take stupidity seriously. For her, stupidity is not stupid. It is something serious, it has a place in actual life. If Kontakthof is a piece about love, intimacy, and love turning into violence and violence turning into love, then Pina's expression here is that love and violence circle around stupid things. Without looking stupidity in the eye, there is no love. There is only fantasy and escape.

The other great element in Pina's works is the fragility of the human body. In the Fall Dance, this comes out most sharply. In The Rites of Spring, it comes out most intensely. What someone like Michel Foucault would have described in grim terms, Pina expresses in a totally different way. Docility is celebrated.

Also, another big problem with art in general is the representation of happiness. Again, it is very difficult to represent happiness without falling into fantasy, escapism, and wishful thinking. Pina's chreographs stir away clean from all fantasies. Here again, stupidity plays an essential role. Because the movements are essentially stupid, the expressions become real expressions of real happiness. Seasons March is one clear example of this. Importantly, anybody can imitate this (but it does take courage) if he or she can find several others with whom to do it.