3.11東日本大震災から2年—。震災で私たちは多くの「死」に直面したが、同時に「死を内包しない現代文明」という本質的な課題にも向きあうことになった。
無毒化に数万年を要する放射性物質。今後この惑星に生きる幾世代もの負担となって残る、発電のメリットすらない廃炉原発と、“トイレなきマンション”から出る核廃棄物。いや現在アメリカ西海岸に漂着しつつある膨大なガレキや、ハワイの「ゴミ大陸」に付加されつつあるプラスチックゴミも、「死」と「循環」という自然界の基本原理を内部化し得ていない近代の人工物文明の根本的な陥穽を浮き彫りにする。
自然界に本来ゴミは存在しない。ゴミはすなわち“デザインの失敗”である。—3.11が突きつけているのは、単に自然に還らない人工物という即物的次元を超えた、私たちの文明とLife（生命・生活・人生）全体の設計思想の問題である。
一方で3.11は、“森は海の恋人”という気仙沼の漁師・畠山重篤氏の言葉に象徴されるように、この世界を根底で支える「死」と「循環」の原理に人々の目をむけさせるきっかけともなった。畠山氏が常々語っておられるように、森の落ち葉が地中で菌類によって分解され、そこで産生されたフルボ酸などの「腐植物質」に鉄分が包含されて、川から海にミネラルのギフトとして届けられることで、海のプランクトン（食物連鎖の根底をなす微生物や藻類）は初めて生育に不可欠な鉄分を吸収することができる。東北・三陸の海が豊かなのは、黒潮と親潮が出会う潮目という以上に、この陸の森からの恵みによるところが大きい。そして逆に海の恵みをたっぷり摂取して育ったサケは、故郷の川に戻って死ぬことによって、海にしかない微量元素を森に届けて森林を養う。魚は海と森をつなぐメッセンジャーであり、地球という生命体を支える血液細胞として働いている。
だが思えば、私たちはこうした解像度で世界を捉え、この惑星のなりたちを語れるようになった初めての世代でもある。私たちがこれから進むべき方向は、いまや明らかである。福島という、その名の通り“湧きだすような生命の豊穣”と、「死」を内包しない文明の失敗を同時に可視化する、この全人類にとってきわめて重要な土地から、この問題を引き受けなおしていくこと。福島を決して「忘却」することなく、この「現場」から新たな文明の原理を発信していくことが、日本人すべての応答責任(responsibility)として求められている。
Two years have passed since the 3.11 Great East Japan Earthquake. We faced many “deaths” because of the earthquake disaster, and at the same time, we end up having to face an essential proposition called “the modern civilization that does not involve death.”
Radioactive substances that need tens of thousands of years to be detoxified, decommissioned nuclear power plants that won’t even offer a merit of generating electricity that will become a burden for many generations to come to live on this planet, and nuclear waste taken out from “a house without toilets.” What is even worse, a flood of rubble about to drift ashore on the West Coast in America now and plastic garbage that is about to be added to The Great Pacific Garbage Patch in Hawaii also highlights the fundamental pitfall of artificial civilization in the modern age that failed to internalize the basic principle of the natural world called “death” and “circulation.”
Garbage does not exist in the natural world by nature. That means, garbage is a “design failure.” The question that 3.11 is presenting to us is beyond the practical/physical dimension of artifacts that will not simply return to nature: Rather, it is the design concept issue for our civilization and the LIFE as a whole (as in being alive, living our lives and the entire span of man’s life).
On the other hand, 3.11 did become a catalyst for people to turn their attention to the principle of “death” and “circulation” that sustain this world at the core, as symbolized by the words of Mr. Shigeatsu Hatakeyama, a fisherman in Kesen’numa that “Forests are lovers of the sea.” As Mr. Hatakeyama habitually tells us, fallen leaves in forests get decomposed by fungi, “humic substances” such as fulvic acid are produced there and contain iron, and they get delivered to rivers and the sea as a gift of mineral. It is only after all these do planktons (microbes and alegae that form the basis of the food chain in the sea) finally get to absorb iron that is vital for their growth.
The sea in Tohoku/Sanriku is significantly enriched by this blessing of forests on the land more than it is enriched by the fact that it is the current rip where the Black Current and the Oyashio Current meet. In return, salmons that grew up by abundantly ingesting the blessing of the sea go back to the river where they came from and die there. By doing so, they deliver microelements that exist only in the sea to forests to nourish them. Fish are the messengers that connect the sea and forests and function as blood cells that sustain the living system called the earth.
Now that I think about it, our generation is the first to become able to capture the world with this level of resolution and talk about how this planet came into existence. The direction we need to head to is obvious now: Visualize the “abundance of springing lives” as the name suggests and the failure of the civilization that does not contain “death” simultaneously; take on the task of the problem from this very place that is extremely important for the entire human being, and send out signals of the principle of a new civilization from this very “site” instead of letting Fukushima slip into obscurity. All of us Japanese are asked to take on these tasks as our responsibilities.