At a lecture session recently, one speaker stated that generally speaking, a state guarantees human rights to all people. I asked her why, then, it does not guarantee human rights to the Burakumin. Looking somewhat puzzled, she replied that it is because people elect such governments in elections. She then seemed to think she had made a counterargument to state my critique by stating that gender equality extends even under capitalism.

In my own lecture, I presented the ideologies and apparatuses that enable the reproduction of discrimination against the Buraku. In other words, it was an explanation of the mechanism of reproduction. In response, the same lady said: “We should not say reproduction. Because when we talk about reproduction, people’s consciousness becomes negative because discrimination will not disappear.” In addition, she also negated my statement that democracy and dictatorship have the same root, without giving any reasons. All of these can be answered simply as follows.

I stated that, with regard to fundamental human rights and the state, reference should be made to On the Jewish Question. The practical application of the human right to liberty is the human right to private ownership, which is discarded as soon as an individual’s right conflicts with its object, private ownership. The human right to freedom ceases to be a right as soon as it conflicts with political life. As Marx plainly stated, human rights in a capitalist society are sometimes violently restricted in their efficacy by state power. Moreover, capitalism does not pay the costs of democratization any more than is necessary. Besides, the state changes the concept of rights at will. For example, it recognizes the ‘right to euthanasia’ for elderly people with incurable diseases and living in poverty. If you notice, it is now in that direction all over the world. The ‘right to euthanasia’ rejects a natural way of the end of life. The ideological apparatus is at work to convince people everywhere to agree that euthanasia is humane.

Because of the reproduction of social contradictions, distorted societies persist. The same is true of Buraku discrimination: if it had not been reproduced, discrimination would have already ceased. There are reasons and mechanisms for reproduction. It is the right of each party to know this. At the same time, when others know it, they can get closer to solving the problem. Sociology can help with that. I am dismayed that it is discouraged to say so.

There is a dichotomous view of democracy and dictatorship as an opposition between good and evil. This is a fallacy. Dictators like Sulla and Caeser were product and features of democracy. So were the tyrants of Greece. And the alert reader can think of many modern examples. If we take an objective view of Carl Schmitt’s theory, which has been criticized as justifying dictatorship, we can understand that democracy is not an idea that opposes dictatorship, but rather that dictatorship emerged as a complementary mechanism democracy in order to overcome of crisis. I have no intention of defending dictatorship. However, it is also true that the ideology that dictatorship is temporarily necessary is born out of democratic ideas and procedures. For example, when the united will of the people is needed to get out of a crisis, even if this is called for in the name of democracy, it is the germ of a dictatorship. This is because in such a situation certain rights are suspended and the emergence of a symbol of sovereignty is inevitable.

In this light, it is to be expected that my lady antagonist is dualistic and ultimately committed to the Enlightenment. She thinks of the world in democratic and reactionary categories. If some Enlightenment changes voters’ attitudes and where they vote, democracies will emerge and the Buraku issue will be solved. But look at France, the US, the UK, etc. Compared to Japan, democracy has been achieved comparative Japan, but those have a dualistic and bifurcated world. It is not because democracy has not been achieved in Japan that there is a dualistic, divided world. If this woman were a real sociologist , she would have learned that this was known by the end of the 19th century.