Introduction of the part

（1）Questioning Western Civilization

Here, I would like to discuss Western/Christian civilization. As already mentioned, the concept of “civilization” (civilisation) has been spreading in European thought since the late 18th century, contrasting the concepts of “civilization” and “barbarism. As a typical example of this barbarism, a situation such as “blood revenge” was imagined. In “Punishment and Revenge” (https://www.academia.edu/9553020/Punishment_and_Revenge) by Leo Zaibert, he indicates that revenge is ‘‘mindless,’’ or barbaric, irrational, etc., and thus unjustifiable, whereas punishment is ‘‘rational’’ or civilized, enlightened, etc., and thus justifiable. In this way, the West, which has constructed a mechanism to turn the act of revenge into punishment, has achieved a civilization that is the opposite of barbarism.

But in its inner workings, as I have explained, it only succeeded in making the penal system cover up “rationalized revenge”! The justification of “violence” in punishment as “violent sacrifice” implies an endorsement of violence. Moreover, this violence includes violent acts reminiscent of the “blood revenge” of the past.

Here I would like to point out that in “The Revenge of Geopolitics,” written by journalist Robert Kaplan, he points out that “in fact, beneath the veneer of civilization lurks the most desolate force of all: human passion.” Emergencies like the war in Ukraine offer a glimpse into the feelings of “rationalized revenge” that have been masked by European Christian civilization in the name of civilization. This is being put into practice by the incomprehensible means of “sanctions. Perhaps this “rationalized vengeance” is fostered at the individual level through repeated acts of seeking “forgiveness” from God, and this “rationalized vengeance” is then expressed all at once in the wake of an emergency situation such as war. Not only that. Through the institutionalization of punishment, the vengeful spirit that has been kept in the collective “unconscious” will also be set in motion. This is why the entire group will fall into a state of hysteria and become involved in acts of violence that will even be willing to take “blood vengeance,” the true identity of Christian civilization.

Let us discuss a few more of these “traps” lurking in Western civilization. The reference here is to the article “Property, Authority, and the Criminal Law” (http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/cdonahue/courses/ELH/mats/Mats9F.pdf) in Albion’s Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth-Century England, edited by Douglas Hay et al, 1975. In this article, Hay argues that “the criminal law was critically important in maintaining the bonds of obedience and deference, in legitimizing the status quo, and in constantly recreating the structure of authority which arose from property and in return protected its interests.” Timothy Gorringe, after appreciating Hay’s view that criminal law reflects many of the most powerful spiritual components of religion in its rituals, judgments, and emotional transmissions, is of the opinion that “religion underlies criminal law and the symbolic celebration of property and social class.”

On the other hand, the doctrine of Anselmus’ origin continues to exert an enormous influence on the Christian world. In his book, God’s Just Vengeance, Gorringe even notes that “As it entered the cultural bloodstream, was imaged in crucifixions painted over church chancels, recited at each celebration of the eucharist, or hymned, so it created its own structure of affect, one in which earthly punishment was demanded because God himself had demanded the death of his Son.” In other words, in Western civilization, a structure has emerged in which theology supports the practice of punitive criminal justice and, in so doing, supports the social status quo. This structure succeeded in pushing vengeance into the collective “unconscious,” which will be discussed below, but it did not deny the very act of having vengeance. Hence, vengeance becomes an individual-level issue. In reality, however, at the level of the collective “unconscious,” the desire for revenge still burns. This important fact has been forgotten, but now, through a wide variety of sanctions against Russia, even the legal basis of which is unclear, sanctions that include the embodiment of “rationalized vengeance” appear to be being imposed mainly on Christian civilization. It takes the form of revenge not only as individual retribution, but also as retribution on a collective level, the latter of which can also be considered revenge.

　Freud’s View of Civilization

Sigmund Freud wrote Das Unbehagen in der Kultur (https://www.projekt-gutenberg.org/freud/unbehag/unbehag.html) in 1929, and in 1930, the English version of Civilization and its Discontents” was published in 1930. In it, he points out that ” the first requisite of civilization, therefore, is that of justice — that is, the assurance that laws, once made, will not be broken on behalf of some individual. For the sake of this necessary condition, he observes that it is impossible to overlook the fact that civilization is built on the abandonment of instincts, and how much civilization presupposes the dissatisfaction (by suppression, repression, or other means) of these very powerful instincts. The book was written because “this ‘cultural frustration’ dominates the large field of social relationships between human beings.”

Freud notes the changes that occur in the history of individual development as civilization suppresses, renders harmless, and perhaps eliminates the aggression that opposes it. It is fulfilled by internalizing aggression. Aggression is internalized and sent back to where it came from. There it is taken over by a part of the ego and set against the rest of the ego as the superego. This superego, in the form of a “conscience,” becomes prepared to carry out against the ego the kind of harsh aggression that the ego would like to satisfy in other unrelated individuals. This tension between the superego and the ego that follows it Freud called “guilt,” and that guilt is expressed in the form of the need for punishment. Freud then writes, “Civilization, therefore, obtains mastery over the individual’s dangerous desire for aggression by weakening and disarming it and by setting up an agency within him to watch over it, like a garrison in a conquered city.”

People feel guilty when they do something they know is “wrong.” Or one may feel guilty even if one did not actually do something bad, but only recognized in oneself the intention to do it. In this case, the bad thing is often not hurtful or dangerous to the ego; on the contrary, it may be pleasant and pleasurable to the ego. For this reason, there is an external influence at work here, and it is this that determines what is good or bad. One must have been motivated to submit to this external influence. Such a motive, Freud says, “can best be designated as fear of loss of love.” Therefore, what is considered bad in the beginning is that which threatens loss of love. Fearing its loss, one must avoid it. It is authority that is prone to this crisis, and it is by obeying authority that one tries to prevent loss of love.

Only when authority is internalized through the establishment of the superego does significant change occur. The phenomenon of conscience then reaches a higher stage. The new authority, the superego, torments the sinful ego and looks for opportunities to punish it from the outside world. The guilt created by a civilization that assumes dissatisfaction often remains unconscious or only appears as a kind of malaise or dissatisfaction. Nevertheless, religions have never overlooked the role that guilt plays in civilization. Moreover, they claim to redeem man from this guilt, which they call sin. In Christianity, this redemption is accomplished through the sacrificial death of one man (Jesus Christ).

Not only an internal authority, the personal superego, but also a kind of cultural superego arises. This arises because the cultural development of the group is linked to the cultural development of the individual. This is Freud’s claim.