Its really amazing how Japanese movie makers so empathetically voice dissent while fully cognizant of the futility of it all. The sense of capitulation at the climax of many such movies are scripted in a way to invoke not a sense of loss, but a sense of preservation of whatever small life, pride and identity is left. Under the mask of laughter, there is a vigorous attempt at forgetting the loss and making the most of the present. I wonder how deeply has Hiroshima affected the Japanese psyche, or does this sense of ‘interal triumph in face of imminent capitulation’ goes beyond Hiroshima, in their amazingly rich culture?
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while thinking of this, got reminded of the Japanese response to the Tsunami in march 2011. Had read about their belief of ‘wa wo mottte toutoshi to nasu.’ (regarding the importance of consensus and harmony) that was the hallmark of the amazingly dignified response to the catastrophe.
But while this consensus and harmony was exercised by Japanese in the face of a disaster, the disavowal of the same principle led to the nuclear disaster. At the heart of nuclear technology is the removal of natural effects from the equation of harmony. Without clear answers about nuclear safe disposal, its risk, the modernity bogey has been pushing the world to consume more n more of energy.

Modernity first erased nature and life of animals from the equation of ‘consensus and harmony’. While most ancient cultures through out the world appreciate the importance and relate to a life of co-existence with nature, the ‘New world’ methodically reduced the world outside of humans to nothing more than a ‘resource’.
As the resource got scarce, the second wave of reduction from the equation came in the form of negating certain sets of people from the consideration of ‘consensus and harmony’. So adivasis, minorities, eocnomies outside of the connected world… started facing the ‘othering’.
As the pace of change accelerated, there remained no place for the equation at all in the world. The world is now an anarchy of economic interests. The world does not recognise any other interest at all. Its a blind raging animal. Its like the rabid dog, that is driven to its doom.