eSOM
The Road to D, or the Story of Singularity High School (SHS) and Cowa
2025.05.27
eSOM: The Road to D (22) Building SHS While Watching Audrey Tang’s “Good Enough Ancestor” (Part 1)
1 First, let’s confirm. SHS/Cowa’s ultimate goal is to (re)construct the East Mediterranean Cultural Sphere (EMCS) as “a society based on mode of exchange D (‘D’) = Digital Democracy (DD),” drawing from the co-authored work Plurality by Audrey Tang and E. Glen Weyl. SHS/Cowa will achieve this goal by fostering individuals who contribute to its realization. Two things prompted me to make this decision: ① Meeting Audrey Tang in person in Tokyo on Monday, May 10th. ② Watching her autobiographical short film Good Enough Ancestor on Tuesday, May 19th. youtube.com/watch?v=idudNr Both made me feel an undeniable connection with her. Enough to decide to build D=DD with her, based on her writings. Not only that, but the road Tang took, as depicted in Good Enough Ancestor, has many overlaps with the road SHS/Cowa is about to embark on (“The Road to D”). Furthermore, there are many suggestive points for programming SHS/Cowa’s co-educational activities. By introducing Good Enough Ancestor and annotating/editing it, I will talk about the co-educational activities we will be undertaking from now on. 2 Tang was born with a heart condition. She says that until she was 12, when her body could withstand surgery, she went to bed thinking she had a 50/50 chance of waking up the next morning: “One of my first memories is of my heart beating quickly and then fainting. It all turns into black. I was born with a heart defect. If my heartbeat increases above a certain level, I have a 50/50 chance of surviving. I could die. I remember going to sleep just thinking, okay, it’s like a coin flip. If it comes up tails, then maybe I don’t wake up the next day.” (From Audrey Tang’s autobiographical short film Good Enough Ancestor) (Note: Hereafter, all text in quotation marks is a direct quote from Good Enough Ancestor.) It wasn’t just illness that tormented young Tang. She was severely bullied in elementary and junior high school. Tang’s mother, a political journalist who studied law, reflects on that time, stating that the uniform, mass education in schools and the competitive mindset of parents conspiring with it were the root causes of the bullying. As an intellectual historian specializing in educational philosophy and policy history, I know that such education in Taiwan originated from the educational policies implemented by Japan during the Imperial Japanese era, and that these have been continuously passed down to the present day. Especially in Japan, due to historical reasons related to post-war Japan-U.S. relations. More on that another time. 3 In any case, in a daily life where violence became commonplace, Tang realized that society, like her own body, was also sick. At the beginning of the film, Tang likens Taiwan to her own body: “Taiwan is, by many accounts, the most democratic place in all of Asia. But yet, we’re acutely aware that if tension arises, if tensions escalate, we can lose our democracy just with a couple of missiles. This awareness that everything can be reset tomorrow, and the strength and resilience coexist in Taiwanese democracy. And this is something that I also feel in my own body.” This viewing of a structural similarity between the body and the Earth is shared by SHS/Cowa members who live by “Ochi-san’s Cosmic History.” (In this regard, refer to The Road to D, or The Cowa Story (8): Me as a ‘Star Child, Cosmic Child,’ and Earth as Part of ‘This Body’) x.com/shinkoukouwa/s For Tang, health for the body seems to be synonymous with democracy for society. And Tang and Taiwan remind us that peace is a prerequisite for “health (= democracy = well-being)” for society. This point is the most important for SHS/Cowa, whose ultimate goal is the construction of “a society based on mode of exchange D (D) = Digital Democracy (DD) = a well-being society.” 4 Tang says she learned from mathematics how to find similarities and commonalities in things that at first glance seem completely different: “I’ve always loved mathematics. The ability to see similarities in very different systems.” For precisely the same reason, SHS/Cowa places the utmost importance on mathematics. Young Tang’s intellectual curiosity was not limited to mathematics. Tang herself speaks about this point as follows: “As a child, I was very curious. I bombarded my parents, aunts and uncle, grandparents with questions. What are ozones? How can we know It’s growing thinner if we cannot see it? What are solar flares? What happens to Earth when the sun dies out? Are there particles faster than light?” Her parents, who recognized Tang’s extraordinary intellect early on, created an environment for its natural cultivation: “We realized Audrey was very smart. Audrey started reading books at a young age. I intentionally bought many books on natural sciences and mathematics and placed them on the shelf, which Audrey read, even though I hadn’t.” There is no doubt that Tang possesses exceptional abilities. However, after leaving my university professorship and serving as a kindergarten principal for several years, I reaffirmed that all children are born with exceptional abilities and qualities (whether to the same extent as Tang is another matter). And, to borrow Tang’s mother’s words, the conspiracy of most schools and the parents educated there still functions as an “ideological apparatus” of the state and capital to suppress the abilities and qualities that everyone possesses as a child. This was something I deeply felt upon returning to Japan after 30 years and entering the field of education. (For “state ideological apparatus,” refer to eSOM: The Road to D (11)) x.com/shinkoukouwa/s In such circumstances, SHS/Cowa, in a word, is trying to become a presence like Tang’s mother. In other words, SHS/Cowa aims to escape (in the Akira Asada’s sense) from schools (kindergarten to high school) as an “(state/capital) ideological apparatus,” as Tang’s mother did, and become a shelter where children’s precious innate abilities and qualities can be purely cultivated, fueled by the energy of flow brain. (Note: For this reason, I recommend reading Asada-san’s Escape Theory (『逃走論』).) According to Tang’s mother: “I was really scared that Audrey would die by suicide. I told Audrey, you are very young. You are too young to understand how much power you will have to change the world. Let’s do homeschooling. We can learn by ourselves. I realized I must bring Audrey back in and push the world out.” In fact, the head of SHS/Cowa’s early childhood co-education department shares a similar philosophy with Tang’s mother. This individual, when her child was in the third grade of elementary school, not only homeschooled but also established a free school as an NPO. With such an early childhood co-education department, SHS/Cowa will begin to build D=DD as EMCS, with students and facilitators united, learning from Tang and working alongside her. (To be continued)
