Recently, an acquaintance entrusted me with proofreading a manuscript. It was a large work about Hannibal, the Carthaginian warrior who fought against Rome in the Mediterranean world in ancient times. Although I had to read many war stories, I was reminded that human beings have not changed one iota between the societies of B.C. and those of today.
In search of food, resources, and wealth, humans tend to wage wars of aggression with cease-fires, make and break alliances, and so on. To win wars, human wisdom is invested and technological innovations are advanced. (Archimedes even invented a new stone thrower.)
In wars, casualties are suffered and resources are wasted. Modern society, for example, has become completely stuck, as it were, in a state of exhaustion due to excessive science and technology, which is damaging the natural environment on which all human beings depend and our own health.
In order to achieve our goal here at Consumers Union of Japan, of “connecting healthy lives to the future,” neither war nor the development of new technologies is necessary. We do not need to monopolize the world by force, but to share it through dialogue.
As Kohei Saito, a noted author of “Capitalism in the New Age,” says, “Rebirth of the Common” will be the key. Human wisdom should not be used to win wars, but to bring smiles to everyone’s faces.
（Keiko Fukaya)