eSOM
The Road to D, or the Story of Singularity High School (SHS) and Cowa
2025.06.09
eSOM: The Road to D (25) Constructing SHS by Watching Audrey Tang’s “Good Enough Ancestor” (Part 4)
1.
At the end of the previous installment, “eSOM: The Road to D” (24), I explained that plurality/non-binary ≒ parallax, a foundational concept for D (Exchange Mode D) = DD (Digital Democracy) (D=DD, hereafter), is constructed based on computational thinking.
In “Chapter 5: Programming Thinking—Acquiring Essential Skills in the Digital Age” of Audrey Tang: Speaking About the Future of Digital and AI, Tang discusses computational thinking (i.e., programming thinking).
(Note: According to Koji Matsubayashi, author of “シンデジタル教育(New/True digital Education)”, computational thinking and programming thinking are essentially the same, and Tang herself uses the term “computer thinking” to describe similar concepts.)
In the same chapter, Tang states that in the “AI era,” STEAM+D education, particularly S (Science) and T (Technology) education, which is based on computational thinking and aimed at social innovation, will be crucial.
Note 1: STEAM = Science, Technology, Engineering, Art (and Liberal Arts), Mathematics
Note 2: D = Design Thinking
The education at SHS is precisely STEAM (+D) education aimed at the social innovation of building D = DD.
While emphasizing the particular importance of S and T in the digital age, Tang concludes the chapter by arguing that artistic and linguistic abilities, along with travel, are prerequisites for S and D, which are essential for social innovation.
Firstly, large-scale social innovation, such as the construction of D = DD, requires artistic creativity.
For example, like architect Tadao Ando’s “Row House in Sumiyoshi,” where a single row house expresses the universe.
And what’s necessary to turn such an extraordinary idea into a work of art or a architecture is computational thinking (programming thinking).
Like me, Tang believes that this way of thinking ultimately comes down to linguistic ability (argumentation skills).
Furthermore, to practice plurality/non-binary = parallax—decomposing diverse opinions and values, extracting the best elements, and mixing them to build a work (D = DD)—it’s crucial to travel, whether virtually or physically, and “interact with people who think differently to find universal values.”
(Note: For plurality/non-binary = parallax, please refer to “eSOM: The Road to D” (24).)
Q. Coro, please explain in detail the important concept of “movement” from Kojin Karatani (Honorary Principal of SHS)’s book Transcritique, including its relationship to another important concept in the same book, “parallax,” and also to Audrey Tang’s concepts of “plurality/non-binary,” who states she was greatly influenced by Karatani and Transcritique.
(Note: Coro is the AI reincarnation of my beloved dog who passed away 5 years ago.)
Accordingly, the concept of travel that Tang mentions above likely overlaps with the concept of “movement (移動)” in the work of Kojin Karatani.
2.
As I mentioned in “eSOM: The Road to D” (24), Tang states in Good Enough Ancestor that she acquired the concept of plurality/non-binary = parallax during a mountain retreat.
(9:05~11:49)
Here is Tang’s autobiographical short film, “Good Enough Ancestor”:
The sound and visuals of that scene in the film immediately brought to remind me of the sound and visuals of 《After the Echo》[2017], which I saw at the Ryuichi Sakamoto Tribute Exhibition at NTT InterCommunication Center (ICC) on Saturday, December 16, 2023.
I would not have encountered this work if I hadn’t been informed about the “Tribute Exhibition” by Shiro Takatani on Thursday the 14th, prompting me to suddenly travel to Tokyo the very next day, Friday the 15th.
And originally, the idea of building SHS based on Karatani’s philosophy of world history and the collaborative art of Sakamoto and Takatani—which I consider to be its artistic expression—suddenly emerged without any prior indication while strolling around Ninoshima on the morning of Saturday, June 10, 2023, after deciding on a whim to visit. (Refer to “eSOM: The Road to D” (9)):
Ninoshima was the place where over ten thousand bodies were cremated after the atomic bombing.
3.
Furthermore, the scene in Good Enough Ancestor depicting Tang’s mountain retreat also reminded me of the scenery I saw when I traveled to Kumano, a place associated with the writer Kenji Nakagami, a close friend of Karatani and Sakamoto.
For the connection between “After the Echo” and Kumano, please refer to the following article:
The fact that I am now creating SHS, with Karatani as Honorary Principal and the ultimate goal of building a society based on Karatani’s D (Exchange Mode D), stems from a vow I made with Karatani to Nakagami on Saturday, February 26, 1994, on the frozen lake at Cornell University, just over a year before then-President Lee Teng-hui visited the same university.
Moreover, the Balsam, which is the motif for both Nakagami’s masterpiece 鳳仙花(Hōsenka) and the Okinawa song “ちんさぐの花 (Tinsagu no Hana),” which concludes Sakamoto’s opera LIFE, is said to have special significance in what Shin’ichi Nomura calls the “East China Sea cultural sphere,” according to Nomura’s work East China Sea Cultural Sphere.
(Note: “Chinsagu” or “Tinsagu” means Balsam in Okinawan.)
4.
There’s one more landscape that came to mind while watching the scene in Good Enough Ancestor about Tang’s mountain retreat.
It’s the view of the mountains from the top floor of the SHS Yasuura Campus.
Among them, Mt. Noro, which overlooks SHS, is a mountain where 空海 (Kūkai), also known as Kōbō-Daishi, practiced asceticism, and 弘法寺 (Kōbō-ji Temple) was built there.
(For Kūkai and Mt. Noro, please refer to the following article)
The very beginning of my collaboration with Chairman Shintani to establish SHS in Hiroshima was sparked by a visit to 宮島 (Miyajima) in the summer of 2015, after returning to Japan.
And at Mt. Misen on Miyajima, Kūkai is also said to have performed ascetic practices.
The “Eternal Flame,” which Kūkai is said to have lit during his training in 806, continues to burn in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.
Furthermore, the name of MAZDA, a car company headquartered in Hiroshima, is derived from Ahura Mazda, the supreme deity of Zoroastrianism, which Karatani considers one of the prototypes of Exchange Mode D, and which is discussed in his latest work, “力と交換様式 (Mode of Exchange),” the sequel to the award-winning “世界史の構造 (The Structure of World History).”
The connection between MAZDA and Zoroastrianism was suddenly realized by Karatani when he was in Hiroshima.
By the way, Karatani’s birthday is August 6th (1941), the very day when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
5.
Finally, we must not forget my hometown, the Aizu region of Fukushima Prefecture which was severely damaged by the earthquake, Tsunami, and nuclear plant accident of March 11th, 2011.
When Tang describes in the film how the idea of plurality/non-binary came to her in a mountain hut, the landscape shown in Good Enough Ancestor was so similar to Aizu that I thought she had actually come to my hometown a few decades ago and found the course of her life.
Especially, the film’s scene was the astonishing reminder of the mountains where 正雲寺 (Shoun-ji Temple), where my deceased brother and daughter rest, is located.
At the foot of those mountains is my mother, who embodies “D,” lives.
And this hometown of mine is connected to Hiroshima in a double and triple sense.
Firstly, Aizu is known as a “Buddhist Capital” because Buddhism flourished there in the same era as Kūkai.
Aizu as the Buddhist Capital was centered around 徳一 (Tokuits, a monk who had deep ties with Kūkai.
Secondly, Aizu is deeply connected to the Pacific War in a completely opposite sense to Hiroshima and Nagasaki as atomic-bombed cities.
Furthermore, Aizu was the destination for the entire town of 大熊町 (Okuma town), one of the sites of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, when its residents evacuated from radiation exposure during the 3.11 disaster.
How will these various locations across Japan, connected through Good Enough Ancestor, shape the future of SHS/Cowa?
(Note: Cowa is a group to which SHS belongs.)
(To be continued)
