We are said to be living in an age of transition, but if we look at the most recent situation alone, it is an age of war. Wars are breaking out all over the place. In some places, this seems to be the trend of the times, and it looks like fighting will be raging everywhere for some time.
Japan is somehow maintaining self-restraint for now, but I worry that the magnetic force of the times could draw us into war before we know it. To prevent this, we must maintain even greater self-restraint and find a way to bring this era to a swift end.
I believe that one key is to return a world that has become too narrow and close to itself to an appropriate distance.
If we prioritize economic efficiency alone, it is certainly easier for things to function more closely together. Eliminating buffer zones and allowing for seamless exchanges would be more effective.
However, neither countries nor ethnic groups exist solely on economics. In fact, for countries and ethnic groups, economics is secondary, with their unique history, culture, customs, and religion taking on greater importance.
If globalization is an attempt to bring countries closer together solely for economic purposes and to fit the entire planet into a single mold, then it is only natural that the more it is pushed forward, the more discord will arise and the more discord will reverberate.
Even with the immigration issues raging around the world, isn’t the root of the problem ultimately the breakdown of an appropriate sense of distance?
After all, the best way to manage the world is for each country to maintain its independence and cooperate while respecting each other. The idea of ​​unifying the entire world may, in some ways, make it easy to imagine a beautiful scenario and may increase economic efficiency, but in the end it is nothing more than armchair theory that will eventually explode after friction.
In fact, the current scene speaks volumes more than anything else. A slightly distant relationship between countries is just right. The right balance of distance seems to lie somewhere around here. (Kei Kitajima)

※Translating Japanese articles into English with AI