The following is from an article by Professor Emeritus Michiko Hasegawa of Saitama University, published yesterday in the monthly magazine "Sound Argument.
It is a must-read not only for the people of Japan but also for people around the world.
In particular, the organizers of the Davos Forum, the pseudo-moralist, greedy assholes who are happily gathering there and who have money they could never spend no matter how many times they are reborn, the US Democratic Party officials, the Bidens, US Ambassador to Japan Emanuel, and others must read it with great attention.
The emphasis in the text other than the headline is mine.
Being Human and Being a Creature
We humans sometimes forget the simple fact that humans are living beings.
It is not surprising.
It is true that human beings are unique compared to other living creatures.
We are not even birds, yet we fly around in the sky and even go to the moon.
We are not even fish, yet we can traverse the oceans and dive to the bottom of the deepest ocean.
It is no wonder that some people feel it is insulting to call human beings blessed with such beautiful abilities "creatures."
However, it is precisely because we are such unique creatures that we must not forget that we are living beings.
Without a clear look back at that history, it would be a stretch to suggest that we educate our children about the value of life.
The recent debate over whether or not legalizing same-sex marriage is right or wrong is also a ridiculous argument if we forget the fundamental history of life that has given birth to the human race.
500 Million Years of Sexual Reproduction
We take for granted that we live in a world teeming with animals, plants, bacteria, and other life forms, but the fact that life was created on this planet was literally a miracle.
We often hear that, of all the planets orbiting the sun, ours is the one at the best distance from the sun, providing the optimum conditions for synthesizing organic compounds from carbon, water, nitrogen, and other elements.
But that alone is not enough to create life.
Life was not born until a "self-replicating" protein was formed. However, that chemical reaction could only occur with a probability of "I in a few hundred million," according to one ancient biologist.
In other words, humans are no different from the paramecium or the penguin because we are here now due to that miraculous, one-time event.
We live a "history of life" with all other creatures.
That history has not been a smooth or uneventful one.
In the very early days, photosynthesis by abundant cyanobacteria completely altered the atmosphere's composition, forcing old bacteria that could not tolerate oxygen to burrow to the bottom of the ocean floor or volcanoes.
There have been many other mass extinctions since then, apparently due to meteorite impacts and other causes.
Ancient biologists have found traces of them in many strata.
However, this did not stop life on Earth; instead, new groups of organisms would emerge and begin to flourish.
Looking at the history of life, one gets the impression (to use a literal tautology) that this is what "life force" is all about.
I feel this especially strongly when I see the history of the world unfold as a history of "evolution," a record constantly changing and diversifying in new and more complex ways.
Without this "evolution," humans would not exist on this Earth.
We are the very poster child of evolution.
So, how did the history of evolution unfold?
Among the milestones, sexual reproduction began about 500 million years ago and is said to have significantly accelerated the evolutionary process. Sexual reproduction, in which a female and a male work together to produce offspring, is the most usual method of biological propagation. Still, it is a revolutionary new method that fundamentally differs from conventional asexual reproduction.
When a sexless, single-celled organism is sufficiently nourished, it divides into two individuals.
Both individuals then carry the exact same combination of the original genes - a clone.
This way, unless a genetic transcription error occurs during cell division, the same genetic combination will be carried from one generation to the next.
On the other hand, organisms that reproduce sexually have two sets of their genes. In contrast, an organism that reproduces sexually produces gametes that carry only one of its two sets of genes and combines them with the gametes of another partner to create a new individual.
In this way, the next generation will always have a different combination of genes from both parents.
I would venture to say that each sexual reproduction is a small step in the evolutionary process of change and diversification.
It is not surprising that biologists regard this revolutionary innovation as a significant event in the history of evolution.
The new method of sexual reproduction, however, presents a problem that did not exist before: the female and the male have to meet.
In previous monogamous reproduction, if the individual had the right conditions, it could multiply anywhere and at any time.
It was indeed the ease of "one-person propagation."
Sexual reproduction, on the other hand, always requires a partner.
That doesn't mean any partner is fine, but a female must be a male, and a male must be a female.
The gametes provided by the two species are essentially different, being divided into two types: the egg, which has the nutrition necessary for development, and the sperm, which can move around but lacks nutritional stock.
These two types of sperm must combine for a new individual to develop.
Consider the same-sex marriage trial.
The sexual creatures we see on Earth today deal with the problem of the male and female having to meet in various ways.
Some birds, such as the South Seas island fowl, use their beautiful plumage and dancing to attract females, while others, such as the bighorn sheep, compete in a contest of strength to win the female.
Others use a kind of group marriage.
For example, in the summer, ayu fish, camped out one by one in their territory in the clear water, migrate down the river in groups in the fall.
When they reach the river bank, the females lay their eggs among the pebbles, and the males fertilize them by spreading sperm.
The young are hatched in the shallows of the sea, where they eat and grow up and then migrate back upstream in the spring.
Earlier, I mentioned words such as "vitality" in a somewhat otherworldly way. Still, if you look inside, you will see such a careful program of action and the struggles of the creatures to realize it to the best of their ability.
I am reminded that sexual reproduction is not an easy thing to achieve.
What about us humans?
At the very least, we do not see any effective program of behavior that governs the ayu.
If such a program governed us, it would be impossible for us to live as human beings.
However, given the difficulty of sexual reproduction, we must have something to support us.
Perhaps we can say that the institution of "marriage" as we know it today has served this function.
Marriage, a custom, and institution that had existed in all peoples of all times in one form or another, regardless of when or by whom it was instituted and irrespective of its structure and detailed arrangements, is the system that has supported our human reproduction, overcoming the difficulties of sexual reproduction.
If we remove the "male-female" relationship from the institution of marriage, can we call it marriage?
The question is being asked in the court case over so-called "same-sex marriage.
For example, on May 30 of this year, the Nagoya District Court ruled in a case in which two male plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against the government, claiming that they suffered disadvantages because the government failed to amend the provisions of the Civil Code and Family Registration Law that do not recognize same-sex marriages, even though they violate Articles 24 and 14(1) of the Constitution. The plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against the government, demanding compensation.
The court dismissed the plaintiff's claim, but what is noteworthy is what the court said about same-sex marriage itself.
The court ruling stated that "Marriage shall be solely based on the consent of both genders and shall be maintained through cooperation on the basis that husband and wife have equal rights," which was initially stipulated with marriage between a man and a woman in mind, the current Civil Code and Family Registration Law are not in violation of the Constitution.
"Humans have been trying to preserve the species by engaging in unions between men and women, and the marriage system was born to control this relationship by norms."
Furthermore, although the form of the marriage system varies depending on the era and region, it is considered to have the role of "protecting and raising children born during that period, maintaining a communal life based on the division of labor, etc., as a living community of men and women." form the core of the family."
The judgment says.
Here, it speaks without excess or deficiency of how important the system of "marriage between a man and a woman'' is to humankind as a member of sexual life.
And the conclusion is obvious.
It is impossible to recognize same-sex marriage within the human marriage system.
However, the decision begins to go astray when it explains the phrase "Laws shall be enacted in conformity with the dignity of the individual and the essential equality of the sexes" in Article 24, Section 2 of the Constitution, which refers to "other matters relating to marriage and the family.
In fact, the responsibility for this lies with the Constitution itself.
If the term "individual" (as the subject of consciousness and will), which is a modern invention, is introduced into an issue such as "marriage," it must be considered in line with the fundamental nature of human beings as living beings, the story would be plunged into chaos.
It is only natural that the discussion would go astray if it is based on a constitution drafted by people who do not know such a thing.
However, even so, a "traditional view of the family'' considers marriage as a combination of men and women. Over time, the way of saying that "it is no longer the only and absolute thing.'', reveals that the writer does not understand the "essence of marriage" at all.
The "tradition" is a 500-million-year-old tradition, far longer than the history of humankind.
Where is the grand declaration that "mankind has maintained the continuity of the species through the union of the sexes"?
At least in those words, we felt a sense of pride and responsibility to regard ourselves as a part of the history of life on Earth, which spans more than three billion years.
And this awareness is essential for us to think about such issues correctly.
We must promote proper "understanding!
In this sense, I want to add one last point.
Recently, the Diet passed a bill entitled "Law Concerning the Promotion of Public Understanding of Diversity in Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.
The details of the content have been criticized from both the left and right sides, but I would like to discuss the very meaning of that "understanding.".
The media often uses "understanding" to mean sympathy and empathy for the unfortunate.
But that is different from proper understanding.
What is necessary is to understand the matter itself from its fundamental framework.
And to know that we humans always live in a difficult balance between "being human" and "being a living being"- is all that is important.
When such a proper understanding is developed, there will be no more nonsensical arguments worldwide.
