Rootless in the Ruins: A Requiem for the Nation-State
As a massive migration era—one that could be described as universally human in scale—advances in various forms, a colossal yet steady replacement is currently underway across the globe. This tectonic shift is not merely a superficial phenomenon of physical human movement or economic reallocation. It is definitive proof that the very project of “Modernity” we have believed in and unconditionally leaned upon—and the massive state systems that have managed and controlled it—have reached the end of their service life and are beginning to collapse with a thunderous crash.
The myriad concepts that once supported us—justice, human rights, or the “optimal solutions” within social systems—are rapidly losing their efficacy, reduced to mere slogans. This is because they were fictions that could only stand upon past preconditions that will never return: a stable climate and exponential economic growth. Now that this foundation has completely crumbled, all values have been ambiguously abstracted, hollowed out, and are facing not just redefinition, but forced abandonment. Yet, unable to endure this radical fluctuation, people inevitably continue to drag the foundations of the old world behind them.
In this era of upheaval, I believe the single greatest issue we must confront is the disappearance of the “Motherland” as an ontological foundation.
What modern people secretly, yet gravely, fear—while simultaneously averting their eyes from it—is the terror of having transformed into “rootless grass,” belonging nowhere. We are not in the process of transformation; we have already transformed. Paradoxically speaking, our current generation will be the last to hold the concept of a Motherland not merely as a text without texture, but as a distinct somatic sensation. The foundation that was once naturally there, the ground from which we could think the world and which manifested as a unique mode of thought, is now being uprooted and is heading toward extinction. Personally, I view this extinction as inevitable, and indeed, something that should not be avoided; I am convinced that only by confronting this harsh reality will the image of the future world come into view.
Looking back at Japan’s post-war history, the process is cruelly obvious. From the scorched earth of World War II to rapid reconstruction, and then the dizzying speed of the high economic growth era. In that process, the Japanese positioned economic rationality at the core of post-war Japan, radically sharpening the realization of a structure where the “System” is supreme. This was executed in various forms, such as rewriting the land—once a place of living—into mere space for generating profit. Within the internal space of this compartmented system, we were stripped of our roots and reduced to obedient, constantly exchangeable labor forces for the system. However, it is crucial to note that this reduction was not a Marxist perspective of exploitation by a ruler, but rather that people subordinated themselves. In other words, history cannot be seen unless we perceive the bidirectional, microscopic movements of “self-domestication” into the system that has become the everyday routine of modern Japan—it is not simply exploitation or domination by the State. The Japanese of the high economic growth period chose that path themselves. What has been established there is a mutual surveillance system at the highest level in the world, manifesting as the Japanese State.
At that time, the concept of Furusato (Hometown/Native Place), which was more rooted in “place” than the abstract concept of Motherland, still remained. However, the community of the Furusato was steadily damaged, and over the roughly sixty years leading to today, its spiritual function has completely partially necrotized. The Furusato no longer exists for us; it has become a fiction. The conclusion of this process has surfaced as the currently grotesquely distorted demographics.
As a noteworthy fact, approximately one-third of the children currently born in Japan are born in the concrete-covered, hyper-dense zone centered around Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, and Chiba—the Greater Tokyo Area. Originally, the sustainability of a nation should lie in the update of culture and life across the entire national territory, but Japan has turned into a massive and abnormal “population suction device” characterized by extreme unipolar concentration in the capital. While this trend is not limited to Japan and is progressing in developed nations, the perspective here is that this is the very fulcrum of the loss of the Motherland.
Born and raised within the nerve center of this state system—the most dense, “prepared” space—they are burdened with the destiny of the rootless, possessing no indigenous hometown and knowing no place to return to. What is most vivid is that they do not know the texture of soil, the sound of the wind, or the silence of trees. And in the problem of extreme unipolar concentration facing developed nations, a situation is prepared where those from the remaining regions are also forced to flow into urban areas as if fleeing from regional cities that are in the process of annihilation. In fact, according to a 2024 announcement by the Population Strategy Council (a private group of experts), 744 municipalities—40% of all municipalities in Japan—are cited as facing the possibility of extinction in the future (around 2050).
Soon, the fiscal collapse of Japan’s local governments will chain-react like dominoes, completely transforming the appearance of Japan. To understand this in advance, for the past few years I have repeatedly visited and conducted fixed-point observations in Akita Prefecture—where fiscal collapse at the prefectural level is assumed to happen first—and several other municipalities facing potential extinction. What I understood there was that the worst-case future is accelerating toward us. In short, the government officials’ estimates are naive. My visceral experience tells me it will happen much sooner.
Watching these scenes, I perceive them as the terminal symptoms of a system that has reached a level where the nation itself is non-viable. And this is not limited to the regions. Just walking through the urban areas of Osaka or Tokyo, the reality is visualized with cruel clarity. There, scenes of elderly people who can barely walk, wandering unsteadily, are part of the daily landscape. Witnessing this daily, I myself harbor doubts—”What part of this is a developed nation?”—and I strongly feel that Japan is, in reality, no longer a developed nation. The crucial point is that these are the very parties who once supported the high economic growth and built this system. Yet, now the system itself cannot support them, causing functional failure; and they, who were nothing more than gears for system construction and maintenance, have no power to move this system. That is to say, in Japan, which pushed forward with “System-First” nation-building, the individual as a citizen or human being was ignored, so no matter what is done now, it is too late.
In short, Japan is already finished.
And to cover up this “finished” state, what is currently surfacing rapidly is the issue of Japan’s remilitarization and the promotion of militarization. However, in my eyes, the speed of modern Japanese people appears like trying to respond to the world with the internet speeds of thirty years ago. Considering this fatal slowness, it becomes visible that Japan’s problem is not actually whether to militarize or not. To begin with, even if it were to militarize, there is no one left who knows war since the defeat, so there is no talent capable of establishing armaments or strategy. Japan, plunging into the world’s first instance of hyper-aging, is simultaneously at the forefront of a declining birthrate, so it cannot gather personnel to maintain an army. And speaking of the weapons Japan possesses, they are mostly obsolete weapons the US no longer uses, so naturally, there is no way to confront nations like China that are assuming war. Furthermore, modern warfare is, needless to say, about digital technology and drones, specifically information warfare, but Japan is fatally lacking in this technology.
Furthermore, considering the current state of Japan maintaining a “gerontocracy” (government of the elderly), it will take a considerable amount of time from constitutional revision to the decision for militarization. Thus, while an army and nuclear armament might steadily be realized, there will be no substance to the fighting capability. For example, considering Japan’s too-slow sense of speed, let us assume it takes 20 years to realize this regime. That brings us to around 2045, marking 100 years since the defeat in WWII. During this time, the possibility of Japan growing is zero; indeed, maintaining the system itself will become impossible, and on top of that, the greatest risk approaches. And that is not a geopolitical risk, but a natural disaster.
In fact, according to new data revised this year by the government’s Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion, the probability of a massive earthquake exceeding the Great East Japan Earthquake occurring in Japan within the next 20 years has been raised to about 60%. The assumptions for this earthquake include a Tokyo Inland Earthquake that would devastate the capital region, and a Nankai Trough Megathrust Earthquake that would devastate Western Japan and the Tōkaidō region—the very heart of Japan’s economy. Furthermore, past records suggest that when such massive earthquakes occur on the Pacific side, the probability of Mount Fuji erupting in conjunction rises. These are not probabilistic figures of “what might happen,” but values that should be understood as statistically “scheduled” to happen. I am currently 34 years old; if I live to the average life expectancy, facing this great catastrophe is unavoidable.
Around the time we reach the 100-year mark of the post-war era in 2045, a massive earthquake will directly hit the dilapidated infrastructure that can no longer be maintained, and the physical territory will collapse. This spectacle is the troublesome near-future Japan faces, even more so than war. At that moment, the world we believed was “Japan” will vanish in an instant. In an instant.
And while Japan can be analyzed through the lens of these risks, because the factor of global instability also exerts influence, it is my view that the probability of encountering a situation where the concept of “Motherland”—which differs for each person—suddenly vanishes in an instant is rising rapidly on a human scale.
War, natural disasters—it will differ by country, but the “World” we believe in vanishing is instantaneous. At that time, everyone will confront an impossible “the Real.” This is because what they have believed in was not the world itself, but merely a fantasy constructed within an “actuality” alienated from the Real. In other words, every single human surviving in the modern age faces the risk of experiencing the moment when the fantasy they have believed in until now suddenly vanishes. Honestly, I consider this to be the greatest risk to modern humanity.
Is this, then, a hopeless future? If we assume it is a desperate situation, how should we live?