Information Itself Is Corruption

When you don't understand something, you find keywords, search for them, examine the information that comes up, compare and consider it, and think.

This is, in a sense, a natural activity.

However, it is not uncommon to end up fishing for information that is unnecessary to oneself as well.

I was taught in a lecture once that the amount of information a modern person acquires in a single day is equivalent to what a person in the Edo period would acquire in a lifetime.

The situation for modern people is that they are acquiring more information than they can handle, whether unknowingly or half-compulsively and habitually.

At such times, I recall two phrases.

One is Gilles Deleuze's, "There is no such thing as corrupted information; information itself is corruption."

The other is Martin Heidegger's, "Information means 'command'."

The source of the former is Gilles Deleuze's Cinema 2: The Time-Image (Hosei University Press, 2006 (1985), p. 371).

In this Japanese translation, it is rendered as, "If there is no such thing as the degradation of information, it is because information itself is degradation."

The first time I quoted it was from Ataru Sasaki's Cut Out Those Praying Hands (Kawade Shobo Shinsha, 2010, p. 17; hereafter referred to as 'Kitte').

I looked for the source of the Heidegger quote, but I could not find it.

Regardless, the words of these two men clearly state what information is fundamentally.

It is a command that makes people sick and weak.

In particular, Sasaki is referring to 'critics' and 'experts' who are desperate to show their superiority regarding everything by saying, 'I know that, it's this and that, isn't it?'

Nowadays, not only professional scholars, critics, and experts, but also major influencers on social media and video sites, as well as their followers, include such people, and a situation has emerged where they are desperately issuing 'commands'.

Is there really anything there worth stopping for and lending an ear to?

Let me quote Sasaki's words.

"Everyone is driven by the fear that they might miss a command. Collecting information means collecting commands. It means always being on edge, straining your ears for commands. It means happily degrading yourself into a subordinate of someone specific, or a subordinate of some 'nobody' hidden under the anonymity of the media. Isn't it wonderful? Because as long as you follow orders, you can convince yourself that you are right. You can convince yourself that you are not wrong." (Ataru Sasaki, 'Cut Out Those Praying Hands', p. 17)

Many people likely feel that collecting more information than one can handle only leads to exhaustion.

If you feel anxious about cutting off information, you should view that very feeling as a sign of danger.

It may simply be that your body is mistakenly feeling anxiety about trying to deviate from orders.

Sasaki is a writer and theoretical religious scholar who seemed to appear out of nowhere with his massive book 'Night Battle and Eternity,' but he points out in 'Stamp' that he was not the only one of his kind.

"People who seem to appear suddenly have one common characteristic. That is, 'they never became anyone's subordinate, nor did they make anyone their subordinate.' They do not listen to anyone's orders. Of course, this does not mean they do not listen to anyone at all. It is just that listening to others is a talent, and not listening is also a talent. It is a story everyone is familiar with: not yielding to high-handed threats. Valéry, who had just appeared on the poetry scene, once wrote a letter to Mallarmé, whom he looked up to as a mentor, asking for advice on his poetry. How did Mallarmé reply? 'Listen to the only true advisor: solitude.' A beautiful anecdote, isn't it? It means, do not listen to me either. You must not become anyone's 'subordinate,' and you must not listen to anyone's 'orders.'" (Ataru Sasaki, 'Cut Out Those Praying Hands,' pp. 12-13)

As long as you are listening to someone's 'orders' and acting as a 'subordinate,' you are essentially not independent.

Perhaps now, we should go beyond 'subordinate' and call it 'slave'.

When was the last time you listened to the voice of your own solitude?

The same story that occurred between Valéry and Mallarmé also exists between Rilke and an aspiring poet who sought his advice.

Rilke sent the following letter to the person:

"You ask whether your verses are good. You ask me. You have asked others before. (Omitted) So (since you have allowed me to advise you), let me ask you: stop doing all of that. You are looking outward, and that is the very thing you must not do now. No one can advise or help you, no one. There is only one way. Go into yourself." (Rilke, translated by Kuniyo Takayasu, 'Letters to a Young Poet / Letters to a Young Woman' Shinchosha, 1953, pp. 14-15)

It means, "Do not listen to outside voices."

The "Theory of Permanent Solitude" that Sochu Shikko discusses in 'Super Hagakure Theory' says the same thing.

"Solitude refers to the determination to live out one's own unique life."
(Sochu Shikko, 'Super Hagakure Theory' Jitsugyo no Nihon Sha, 2021, p. 30)

Is it necessary to repeat that we busily collect 'orders' because we cannot make that determination—in other words, because we are cowardly?

Those who truly become solitary, cut off information, and throw themselves at what they want to grasp are courageous people.

After all, it is an endeavor with no guarantee that it will lead you to a safe place.

It is an act of exposing oneself to contingency.

To a slave who submits to orders, such a thing is too terrifying to do.

Sometimes, I feel like cutting off all external information, taking a few books, and shutting myself away in an environment isolated from the outside world, such as a monastery.

The "Hyperbolic Time Chamber" that appeared in "Dragon Ball" is, personally, my ideal.

Perhaps it is a desire to deeply immerse myself in a perspective that transcends the clamor of the world, in the echoes of eternity.

Physically, achieving that is not easy, but I am trying to stop the practice of gathering information as much as possible.

Perhaps that is behavior that might make me look like a "fool."

However, if I can get even one step closer to what I truly want to grasp, what does it matter how others think of me or what they call me?

I can only think that way when I am in solitude, reading intently by myself, and engaging in the act of "reading it only as it can be read."

To read is to commune with the writer and the dead beyond the letters.