Pluralistic and “miscellaneous” people who have been placed in a kind of “apparatus,” recursively formed in the modern era, have been subjectified to discriminatory treatment as a Burakumin, sometimes without being aware that they are themselves a Burakumin. Regardless of whether or not the individual concerned is aware of this, a gaze that penetrates the self comes from nowhere. The specific image of the person who is gazing at them is not visible and their true identity is unknown. Therefore, Burakumin do not know how they are being gazed at or what it means, and in the end, they do not know whether they are mistaken or not. If it is a mistake, we do not even know who is the source of the mistake. Hence, the “apparatus of the Buraku” functions as if it were a “prison” as discussed by Michel Foucault or an “ideological apparatus of the state” like the school described by Louis Althusser [1995=2005:120-7], and those who are placed in it fear the invisible gaze of self as Burakumin. fear the invisible gaze towards them. They are also unable to understand how the apparatus functions. And according to relational theory, the gaze has the power to transform non-Burakumin into Burakumin, but even if this is the case, the power functions more “effectively” towards those who have already been put into the apparatus. Can this mechanism of fear, which cannot be solved by relational theory, be explained by realist or industrialist perceptions? Can it be elucidated that the techniques of surveillance and governance over the Buraku population are transformed into a holistic mechanism governing contemporary society?

It is said that the Burakumin are diverse. When this is said, it is assumed that the class existence of the Buraku is made up of a single mass, and that the composition within that mass is diverse. This is not the case; the Buraku are pluralistic. It means that the Buraku is originally made up of several different masses. I believe that to speak of a specific origin of the modern Burakumin with these qualities would be to speak of the Burakumin in a single narrative. In other words, people in Buraku are pluralistic in the sense that they cannot be told or made to tell a single narrative. This author does not glorify pluralism, which reflects each culture. To accept difference is also to accept exclusion. It is criticizing essentialism, which lumps together the whole of the Buraku and emphasizes cultural differences with society as a whole. I believe that the single narrative produced by essentialism, which states that the Burakumin have historically shaped essential characteristics, whatever these may be in themselves, results in the confinement of the Burakumin within the framework of the early modern and medieval period.