Compass of the Times 223

The Fight Against Nihilism

Keiko Takahashi

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Signs of Change

The end of the long tunnel of the coronavirus pandemic is approaching. At the end of August, the Japanese government announced its policy to change the surveillance of all infected cases to focus on those who are most vulnerable.

This measure changed the legal classification of coronavirus infection from class 2 infectious disease, in which it is required to report and quarantine those with infection, to that of  Class 5, in which both report and quarantine are no longer required.

Of course, the elderly and those at high risk due to an underlying medical condition will still need caution, but for the rest of the population, it is expected that the countermeasures for coronavirus will basically be the same as that for influenza.

Our country has finally caught up with the standard measures to coronavirus now taken in Western countries. This means that, in a physical sense, we have conquered and won the battle against the novel coronavirus infection.

For the first time in years, it is becoming possible to revitalize stagnant economic activity and regenerate in many ways people’s activities that had been suppressed and held back.

A New Wall—Nihilism

It is not so simple to say, however, that the signs of an abating coronavirus pandemic will transform all aspects of the situation into light. What I mean is that we still have challenges to overcome.

I have been speaking from time to time about things that were brought about by the realities of the time of the unbelievable, including the pandemic. It is no exaggeration to say that, in the past two and a half years, the new pandemic swept the world and pushed it into an abyss of confusion. Meetings and gatherings have been restricted, and the food and beverage industries, passenger transportation industry by rail and air, event planning industry, and tourism industry have all been hit hard.

But that is not all. The novel coronavirus infection has not only taken a heavy toll on the dimensions of actual daily life, but it has also cast a shadow over the issues of the mind for us as humans.

In our country, people have been suppressed from all encounters and interactions, and they have stayed at home, avoiding interaction with each other. Implicitly, what was going on was a nihilism in which positive feelings were uprooted, and there was no sense of hope for the future.

This was a sense of powerlessness that you could not do anything about on your own. Compared to the past, before the pandemic, it was difficult to generate positive actions and choices, and people ended up doing nothing. For some reason, you became dominated by a negative mood, and so on and so forth. If you look around carefully, you may find many people who have such feelings within them.

In such time, subsequently, there also happened the unilateral invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the unexpected assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Abe. I believe that these events have strengthened the nihilism that had been spreading inside of us and now grips us with an unspeakable force.

Mental problems tend to begin later than physical problems and can proceed in an invisible way. It can take more time for the effects of mental problems to be manifested as reality.

It is none other than the problem of nihilism, which was produced by the turmoil of the past several years, that we must confront from now on.

The Fight Against Nihilism

Now that the coronavirus pandemic is beginning to show signs of abating, the time of the unbelievable that we face has entered a new level, the next phase.

We will now confront a new wall called nihilism brought about by the blade of this era. We must consider how terrible the impact of nihilism can cause on our reality and our lives.

Nihilism weakens the hope within us. It takes away our passion for visions and aspirations, eliminating the resonance of visions and aspirations within us. As a result, it fractures the bonds between people, lends a hand to the cruelty of Saha (the World of Suffering and Endurance)¹ and intensifies the flow that accelerates the Law of Disintegration².

This is the reason why we must now fight against the nihilism that nestles inside of us. Let us do that to regain the power to believe in ourselves and in the people with whom we live. And, importantly, to restore our hope for the future.