eSOM
The Road to D, or the Story of Singularity High School (SHS) and Cowa
eSOM: The Road to D (92) A Letter to Audrey Tang (3)
“eSOM: The Road to D” Part 2 (29)
10/19~20/2025
1．
Following on from last time (“eSOM” 91), let’s continue our discussion of the section “‘From ‘is’ to ‘ought'” within the “6-pack of care.”
The “6-pack of care” is here:
(The link contains both the original English text and the Japanese translation.)
Last time, using the above section as a stepping stone, I argued that one of the greatest contributions that our Cowa Group, including SHS/PU, can make towards the production of DD is the “remix (deconstruction)” of ⿻ (which signifies Audrey’s concept, ‘plurality,’ as well as Tang & Weyl’s co-authored book “PLURALITY”) by featuring the philosophy of Kojin Karatani and post-structuralist philosophy.
Ever since my email exchange with Audrey began in May, I have been engrossed in this work, right up to the present.
This is because the “remix (deconstruction)” of ⿻, featuring Kojin’s philosophy and post-structuralist philosophy in Japan and France, is, as I consider, one of the most critical tasks in producing DD utilizing ⿻/D.
Why?
Let me explain it step by step.
We will start our discussion with the problem of authoritarianism.
Generally, China is regarded as a prime example of the latter, and Audrey’s attempt to produce DD in opposition to authoritarianism is closely related to the current state of Cross-Strait relations, as is clear from Audrey’s recent interviews.
Audrey Tang | Full Episode 10.10.25 | Firing Line with Margaret Hoover | PBS
For the Cowa Group, whose ultimate goal is the production of DD, bringing peace to the Taiwan Strait is a top priority.
We are trying to achieve this in the form of producing the Eastern Mediterranean Economic and Cultural Sphere (EMECS) as DD.
This is the purpose of my and Kohei’s current visit to Taiwan.
2．
The production of DD.
Looking back now, I believe I have devoted myself to research as a social historian ever since I met Kojin on the Cornell University campus in February 1994, solely for this purpose.
In May of that same year, Lee Teng-hui, the then-President of Taiwan who also greatly influenced Audrey, visited Cornell, his alma mater, and gave a historic speech.
Amazingly, I was present on that occasion.
Now, more than 30 years later, I am visiting Taiwan for the first time to collaborate with Audrey, and I cannot help but feel a deep connection to Taiwan and Audrey.
Having spent my academic life with the sole objective of producing a world similar to Audrey’s DD, my research theme was the history from World War I to the post-1945 era (especially the history of social thought centered on the philosophy of education).
From my perspective, the current situation in Asia and the world as a whole bears a surprising resemblance to that time.
Albeit with a different “cast of characters.”
If I may risk being misunderstood, Japan at that time overlaps with present-day China in various aspects.
In fact, based on that premise, I wrote my final article as a scholar, comparing Manchuria of that time with the current South China Sea.
Immediately after, I left the university and began what I am doing now.
My last academic article as a scholar is here:
“A Secret History: Tosaka Jun and the Kyoto Schools” by Katsuhiko Endo
My research, including this article which represents the culmination of my work as a scholar, always centered on “Emperor system fascism,” which is said to be a fascism peculiar to the Empire of Japan, including Taiwan.
To be more precise, it was the relationship between Emperor system fascism and democracy.
What proved most useful in that analysis were post-structuralist philosophy (Foucault, Derrida, and especially Deleuze & Guttari), and the treatises of Kojin, his close friend Akira Asada, and Hiroki Azuma, whom Kojin and Asada discovered.
To simplify their arguments (violently) in relation to the discussion in “eSOM” (91), first, fascism, unlike authoritarianism (the Tree , or a vertical alignment of desire), is based on a “the Rhizome (a horizontal alignment of desire).” (Both the Tree and the Rhizome are DG’s concepts.)
And fascism is the vertical alignment of desire ‘on steroids,’ where the Rhizome, triggered by “a certain catalyst,” turns into the Tree oriented towards an “empty center.”
In the case of the previous wartime period, the “certain catalysts” were the Great Depression and war.
This time, large-scale disasters, from earthquakes to pandemics, should probably be added.
Furthermore, “polarization and the intensification of conflict due to cyberattacks,” which Audrey mentioned in the “Firing Line” interview, should also be considered an important part of modern warfare.
3．
The fact that French post-structuralists viewed fascism in this way suggests that the characteristics of Emperor system fascism are not unique to the Empire of Japan (which included Taiwan) but are universal characteristics of fascism in general.
It could be said that Taiwan clearly demonstrates this ambiguity of fascism, possessing both “the Tree” and “the Rhizome” aspects.
It was Leo Ching, a professor at Duke University and current Dean of Humanities and the Arts there, a Taiwanese raised in Japan and an old acquaintance of mine, who taught me that, unlike in South Korea and North Korea, many Taiwanese people who lived under Japanese rule feel nostalgia for that period.
This was in his paper: “Give Me Japan and Nothing Else!”: Postcoloniality, Identity, and the Traces of Colonialism.
It is extremely interesting that DD, which has the potential to become a true democracy, was born in such a Taiwan.
In any case, exploring the relationship between (true) fascism and (true) democracy will be indispensable for the future evolution of DD.
The starting point for that exploration should be eco-fascism.
This is because it vividly demonstrates the proposition stated above: “fascism, typified by Emperor system fascism, is based on the Rhizome, which, triggered by a certain catalyst, transforms into an extreme form of the Tree.”
First, let’s ask Coro about eco-fascism.
Q. Coro, please explain the concept of “eco-fascism” in detail.
Permaculture can be said to be a prime example of what Coro here calls “mainstream environmental movements (the majority of environmental movements and ecological thoughts).”
Permaculture is particularly important to us.
This is because Audrey states at the beginning of the “6-pack of care” that AI gardeners should become digital permaculturists. (Translator’s note: Permaculture is a method for designing societies where people and nature can coexist sustainably.)
Simply put, Audrey is proposing to produce a rhizomatic AI alignment modeling it after permaculture, and utilize it to produce DD, which is also rhizomatic.
Coro places “mainstream environmental movements (the majority of environmental movements and ecological thoughts),” including permaculture, at the opposite pole of eco-fascism (authoritarianism, dictatorship).
Here, Coro commits a common double error regarding fascism: confusing fascism with authoritarianism or dictatorship, and positioning it as the opposite of the rhizomatic “mainstream environmental movements (the majority of environmental movements and ecological thoughts).”
As I have been saying, what Japanese and French post-structuralists like Kojin revealed is that fascism is based on the Rhizome (horizontal alignment of desire), which, triggered by a certain catalyst, transforms into an extreme form of the Tree (vertical alignment of desire).
4．
What allows the transformation of the Rhizome (horizontal alignment of desire) into fascism (“extreme” vertical alignment of desire)?
Let’s examine this through the contrast between the ecosophy (deep ecology) of Arne Næss, one of the representatives of rhizomatic “mainstream ecological thought,” and the ecosophy (the three ecologies) of Félix Guattari, who, along with Deleuze, led post-structuralist philosophy.
Q. Coro, please explain in detail Arne Næss’ Deep Ecology, Bioregionalism, and Félix Guattari’s Ecosophy, respectively, and their relationships. Then, discuss the relationship between your detailed explanation, the SDGs, and the philosophy of Deleuze & Guattari.
Coro summarizes the part of Næss’ ecosophy (deep ecology) that Guattari was skeptical about as follows (bold):
Næss’s Ecosophy: Næss’ thought aims for “unity with nature.” He believed that by overcoming the ego through personal intuition and spiritual experience and identifying with the larger Self—that is, nature as a whole (self-realization)—an ecocentric ethic would emerge from within. Nature here tends to be depicted as harmonious and a totality to which we should return.
According to Coro, Guattari, who, like Audrey, emphasized the “coexistence of heterogeneous things,” “was wary of this aspect of Næss’ ecological thought romanticizing and idealizing nature.”
Why should one be wary?
Because this very thought of Næss has the same structure as the ideology of Emperor system fascism, which most vividly expresses the essence of fascism per se.
During the previous wartime period, it took the form of the theory of the Emperor system by Kitaro Nishida, one of 20th-century Japan’s representative philosophers.
Simply put, Nishida replaced “nature” in Næss’ thought with “Japan” and advocated that the Emperor and the Imperial Palace were the “empty center” symbolizing “nature/Japan.”
It was Roland Barthes, one of the representatives of structuralist philosophy, who uncritically praised such fascist ideology as a culture non-existent in the West in his book “Empire of Signs.” (It can be said that in this naiveté lies the biggest problem of structuralism, which the post-structuralists criticized.)
Q. Coro, please explain the differences between the two ecosophies of Arne Næss and Félix Guattari, then explain the similarities between Næss’s deep ecology and Kitaro Nishida’s theory of the Emperor, and finally argue that Roland Barthes’s “Empire of Signs” can be read as a structuralist analysis of the thoughts of Næss and Nishida.
5．
Guattari, who, along with Deleuze (whose brother, a member of the French Resistance, was killed by the Nazis), attempted a thorough critique of fascism, must have seen the seeds of this transformation into fascism even in the rhizomatic ecosophy of Næss, whose position was very close to his own.
The most outstanding theorization of this radical critique of fascism by Japanese and French post-structuralist philosophers is the “negative theological system” theory by Hiroki Azuma.
Q. Coro, please meticulously verify the hypothesis that Hiroki Azuma’s “negative theological system” theory, in “Ontological, Postal: On Jacques Derrida,” theoretically explains that permaculture is fundamentally rhizomatic in the sense of Deleuze & Guattari, and that it can transform into eco-fascism as an “(extreme) the Tree”-like alignment during times of emergency (e.g., the Great Depression, war).
It goes without saying that the “absent center” here corresponds to the “Emperor/Imperial Palace” in the Emperor system fascist ideology ( = the essence of fascism per se) as Nishida’s theory of the Emperor.
And from this explanation by Coro, I think you can clearly see that my summary so far of the post-structuralist critique of fascism is indebted to Azuma’s “negative theological system” theory.
During the discussion titled “What Is Plurality?” on June 26th between Azuma and “Team Mirao”’s core members (Takahiro Anno, and Ken Suzuki), it seemed to me that Azuma, sometimes, felt impatient with the latter two’s remarks (or the absence of remarks).
This was likely because the “Team Mirai” side lacked the perspective on the danger that DD based on the fundamentally rhizomatic ⿻/D could generate fascism (a negative theological system) based on it; as well as the perspective on the way to prevent the Rhizome from becoming fascism.
I understand that Azuma, based at Genron Co., Ltd., which he founded, is putting into practice what Guattari’s ecosophy intended, as follows (bold):
Guattari’s ecosophy is not about returning to nature, but a creative process that constantly “produces” new subjectivities and social relations. It is a struggle to invent diverse and singular ways of life, countering the uniform logic of capitalism (IWC: Integrated World Capitalism).
…
Whereas Næss’ thought has the Tree-like aspect where everything connects to “nature” as the origin (center), Guattari’s ecology grasps the world as a rhizomatic network without a center, where heterogeneous things connect in unexpected ways.
“A world as a rhizomatic network without a center, where heterogeneous things connect in unexpected ways,” is also “a creative process that constantly ‘produces’ new subjectivities and social relations, rather than returning to nature.”
I understand such “a world as a process” to be DD, a world that expands by “connecting heterogeneous things in unexpected ways” through ⿻/D as technē, while continuing to flee from the “horizontal AI alignment’s becoming into fascism.”
From such a standpoint, I believe it is the mission of us at SHS/PU to expand/deepen/deconstruct (in a word, remix) Audrey’s texts, such as “⿻ (PLURALITY)” and the “6-pack of care,” by featuring Japanese and French post-structuralist philosophy.
In the conversation with Anno and Suzuki, Azuma likened such a rhizomatic “world as a process” to the “jumbled, multi-tenant buildings” found in large cities like Tokyo and Taipei. (It was hilarious that Azuma seriously recommended Anno to begin Team Mirai’s political activity by renting the office in one of such buildings in order to learn what the “real world” is.)
From a similar perspective, Akira Asada—Kojin’s best ally and Azuma’s mentor hailed as a “once-in-a-century genius” and an “alien” by many, including Kojin—discussed the ambiguity of the boundary between (true) democracy and (true) fascism in his “Kanazawa Lecture” on September 13th.
He did so by traversing philosophy, art, music, and architecture, focusing on the Buddhist philosophy of Kitaro Nishida and his lifelong friend, Daisetsu Suzuki.
Next time, I will talk about this “Kanazawa Lecture” by the genius Akira Asada.
(To be continued)
