1. What Was the Aum Affair?

Although nearly everyone in Japan experienced an almost reflexive sense of revulsion regarding the Aum sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subways, at the same time there was sympathy for the ordinary Aum followers who had been attracted to Aum Shinrikyō for religious reasons, a feeling that something had to be done to help them.
          The aversion we feel for the Aum Affair has its source in the way it threatens one of our fundamental beliefs as modern human beings: that human nature is such that it will not allow us to do certain things. After the Aum Affair this ideal view of modern society seemed little more than an illusion. The sense of fear and suspicion that encompassed Tokyo after the subway gas attack and the swift reaction (one might almost say overreaction) on the part of the authorities clearly showed that this was not viewed as an ordinary crime. There was also a type of agitation, based on not knowing what to do, yet feeling that one couldn’t just sit still. The strange sense of almost space-alien “otherness” we felt toward the Aum leaders, the surprise we experienced at the sect’s comic-book worldview and juvenile philosophy, and the disbelief we felt regarding the followers’ credulous acceptance of the sect’s teachings and practices all combined to overturn our modern humanistic faith in mankind, a faith based on our trust in the fundamental decency of human beings.
          This humanistic worldview forms the foundation of modern science. The natural sciences arose when humanity freed itself of the view that the universe was the creation of God and attempted to understand the natural world in systematically consistent terms; the social sciences arose when humanity freed itself of the view that it was entrusted with a mission by God and attempted to understand the human condition directly, just as it is. This changed our view of existence completely. No longer was the world a divine creation ruled over by God, but rather a material realm ruled by the physical laws of cause and effect; humans were no longer creatures made in the image of God, but rather the evolved descendants of apes. Everything was judged and measured from the perspective of the human eye. Modern humanism freed humanity from the hand of God; modern science positioned man at the center of the universe. To this modern way of thinking, the old worldview of a bidimensional reality in which the eternal noumenal world transcends and encompasses the transitory phenomenal world is nothing but a fairytale. Existence is regarded, rather, as a unidimensional reality extending as far as the human eye can see, an infinite space with nowhere declared off limits in the name of God. In this sense modern humanism is anthropocentric, and it is this limitless faith in human nature that has empowered humanity to discern unity and order in the universe and to assert the principles of liberty, equality, and charity that inform and justify the fundamental ideals of modern society. It is belief in humanity, not in God, that has driven the development of the modern world.
          The Aum Affair, however, destroyed this carefully cultivated view of humanity, forcing us to recognize that human nature, which we thought we knew so well, was something still beyond our understanding. In this sense the Aum Affair posed a challenge to the foundations of modern humanism. Hence the nameless dread it occasioned in Japanese society and the intense reaction it drew from abroad.
          Why, then, is it that there was such a sense of sympathy, even empathy, for the ordinary Aum believers? This may well have been because we sensed in the ordinary Aum believers, too, a challenge to modern humanism. As mentioned above, modern humanism constitutes, in effect, an anthropocentric declaration that humanity has the right to oversee and manage all of existence. That right extends even to humanity itself. The advance of humanism led to a society in which not only nature but the individual human mind was brought under control. Though contemporary society professes to honor autonomy and self-determination, in fact the content of that autonomous self is largely determined by the fasihons in thought and socially acceptable behavior promoted by the mass media and various other modes of communication. Such “anonymous authorities” control both individual minds and social institutions, so that we feel socially threatened if we fail to keep up with fashions or are out of touch with current events. What is at work here is not a specific, concrete authority figure but rather the anonymous authorities of social trends, public opinion, and conventional wisdom. Binding and ruling ourselves through these anonymous authorities, we become homogeneous units of modern society, our views no more than mere numbers appearing in public opinion polls. Modern humanism, by freeing us from the hand of an almighty God, has made us dependent on limited human nature.
          Furthermore, our present unidimensional view of reality means that even if we free ourselves from this dependence there is no longer another dimension in which to rest. The modern world is one in which we feel stifled and restrained by our own human condition, yet bereft of anywhere else to go. Modern people, while extolling the freedom to act as they wish, somehow lack a sense of basic fulfillment, and secretly aspire to a true self different from their present self and a true place different from where they are right now. Refusing the hands extended toward them, they seek to escape in isolation.
          Modern humanism is founded on faith in human nature, but human nature is bound up with the limitations of being human. This is one reason why in advanced industrial societies where the humanistic worldview is strongest one always finds in one form or another cults that isolate themselves from those societies, rejecting their worldly values and seeking meaning in mystical experience. This is basically an attempt by modern people suffocated by their own humanness to escape the confines of the limited world they live in. The ones experiencing this type of suffering—not so much material as spiritual and cultural—are generally affluent young people, particularly those sensitive enough to perceive the dead-endedness of what materialism has to offer. These modern cults are thus made up primarily of young intellectuals.
          Aum Shinrikyō can be seen as a cult of this type. Thus, despite our outrage at the Aum Affair, we feel a certain sympathy for the ordinary Aum believers since we see in them the casualties of the modern world, together with whom we suffer the limitations of a society that can no longer see beyond the human scale.
 
>>2.What was Aum Shinrikyō?
>>3.What should we do?