East⦿West: Philosophy for the 22nd Century

In an era where the unified real image of the world is precipitously descending into a chaotic abyss, it is of paramount importance to grasp, once again, what exactly this “world” signifies. For unless we displace the very ground upon which endless debates are currently held, the situation will never turn toward a better direction. Lurking within this stagnation is a single technique: symptomatic treatment.

Until now, this world has been broadly bifurcated into two realms: the West and the East. This tendency remains deeply rooted at the bottom of human thought, whether conscious or unconscious. No matter how anachronistic one might deem such thinking, this pathogen, once taken root, is not easily removed. Indeed, the solution of “removal” is rendered impossible because the very environmental soil where the pathogen resides remains invisible.

Of course, it is impossible to unilaterally define the West or the East and assign them a fixed character. Viewed individually, each is extremely pluralistic; even within the stipulated realm called the East, India, China, and Japan are entirely different. While there may be threads of connection, whether they can be integrated under the equal sign of “the East” remains highly questionable. The same applies to the West.

However, precisely around the onset of the Second World War, terms such as “Eastern thought” and “Eastern philosophy” began to be advocated in various forms within Japan. Until then, the perspective of “the East” was merely a vantage point from the West, which boasted overwhelming power at the time. Consequently, there was neither agreement nor alignment with this view. Yet, triggered by certain events, Japan’s own issues were expanded into the context of the East. Eventually, the Japanese began to claim the Eastern perspective as their own, initiating a movement of various assertions. A typical example is D.T.Suzuki of Zen fame, who discussed matters multilaterally through a distinctly Eastern consciousness.

Nevertheless, the nuance of “the East” spoken of here inevitably shifts drastically depending on who is observing which part of the East. In other words, while one might extract certain common denominators to totalize “the East,” it can be said that there is no substance to it. Rather, we begin to see a figure wherein the massive realms of East and West are stipulated by “fabricating” these common denominators. The crucial point here is the movement to discover, stipulate, and posit “something that resembles a commonality” as a universal. Yet, this remains no more than “something that resembles a commonality.” Because this dubiousness has been left almost unconsidered as the ages have progressed to the present, the issue of East and West has become further confused, and inevitably, the world positioned within that totality is believed to be in disarray.

However, this does not render this perspective meaningless. Rather, by reconsidering the major premise—the one great tendency lurking therein—we can see that the approaches of the East and the West are entirely different. In truth, if we are not captivated by the superficial, mysterious differences between East and West, the true issue converges on the fact that the thinking itself is fundamentally different. That is to say, history has developed with the very process of thought rooted in completely different soils.

Limiting our view to the modern era and beyond, one could say the West has held hegemony in this world. However, when viewed through the grand framework of human history or the history of civilization, civilization has oscillated between East and West numerous times to arrive at today. I view this transition not merely as a replacement or circulation of civilization, but rather like the helical structure of DNA. And in this transition, there is always a kinetic force that transfers the primary cause of civilization. That force is the Great Migration of peoples.

In this process of civilizational transfer between East and West, it is almost certain that new religions and philosophies rise to prominence. It is crucial to grasp the perspective that this civilization possesses a cycle. History proves as truth that civilization never grows in a linear, upward trajectory forever. Therefore, now that the end of one civilization is approaching, no matter how one resists, what is dying will die. The question is, having grasped this perspective historically, how do we perceive the real image of the next world?

I will speak broadly for now, but the primary causes of the East-West civilizational transfer include the Aryan invasion, the invasion of the Sea Peoples, the expeditions of Alexander the Great, the migration of the Germanic peoples, the Mongol expeditions, and the Crusades—all occurring over the last 5,000 years. Each time, the fulcrum of civilization shifted between East and West. In a sense, it seems not that civilization transfers for humanity to survive, but that it transfers for civilization itself to survive. Considering that this primary cause—ethnic migration—becomes the primary cause of civilizational transfer as a consequential fact, phenomena such as the influx of Syrian refugees into Europe in the 2010s mark, according to the teachings of history, the next transfer point.

Thus, although the period we might call the Western Century has continued for several centuries, history teaches us that this will transfer toward the East; this is predictable to some extent. However, we must also consider that we are placed in a certain singular situation. Having accelerated modern civilization to this point, for us living in a world that has passed through globalization—setting aside judgments of good or bad—are we to simply remain subservient to the conventional historical cycle and begin the next few centuries?

In reality, strictly observing the status quo, it appears we are heading in that direction. Yet, despite our generation being the first in human history capable of relativizing history to this degree, if the principle of repeating this East-West transfer is to continue for eternity, we must be bewildered, asking ourselves what on earth we are doing. That is why we must thoroughly rethink the question of what the great characters of the East and the West have been until now, and where their intersection lies, premised on this grand framework. Upon that, we must continue to contemplate where to set the point of encounter and how to actively create a state where the two are inseparable. In other words, my personal awareness of the issue is a concern over the fact that the framework of East and West remains separated, and to render it inseparable requires the emergence of a human being with an entirely new way of thinking.

Therefore, the inquiry must reach the next dimension. First, how does the human who creates this non-separation appear? Next, in the next world created by that human, what manner of thinking should we possess regarding the nature of things? This seems to be the critical philosophical theme of the 21st century and the eras beyond.

Now, regarding this East-West matter, interpretations are limitless, but I personally find it easiest to understand by observing the differences in medicine between the two.