by Noriyuki Morimoto
The source of creation in modern society is desire. The capitalist economy has grown with desire as its fuel, and has developed dramatically through the self-propagation of desire, significantly expanding the human world.
The realization of desire requires rational calculation and strategy. While desire does not arise from reason, it is actualized through reason. In other words, reason uses desire to expand its own sphere of control.
In the modern age, however, desire is saturated. At that point, the rule of reason becomes complete, and the world becomes meaningless. In the modern age, creation is to create new meanings, which remain outside of reason as something that can no longer be rationalized. Therefore, creation is madness.
To be a maniac is to be mildly insane, a common manifestation of which is the compulsion to collect. Wine lovers collect so much wine that they will never be able to drink it all in their lifetimes; bibliophiles boast of having so many books that they will never finish reading them before they die. Whatever their object of desire is, these collectors do not think about how they will use or utilize the things they collect in accordance with their original purpose. This shows that they are illogical and, as their behavior is irrational and meaningless in a rational sense, it is a form of mild madness.
By denying the logical meaning of collecting, and discovering the illogical meaning of collecting, collectors create value. In the modern world, saturated with desire and material goods, creation can only be the discovery of new value in what already exists.
The scenery of Kamikochi is the same as it was in the Edo period, but when foreigners visited in the Meiji era, a new sense of scenic beauty was created there, just as a new sense of beauty was created when Rikyu used everyday tableware from foreign countries as tea bowls. The creation of value in Japan’s tourism industry is the creation of diverse values by diverse foreigners in locations of all kinds.
This is how creation is a shift in values.
[Category /Work-Style Reform]
Chief Executive Officer, HC Asset Management Co.,Ltd. Noriyuki Morimoto founded HC Asset Management in November 2002. As a pioneer investment consultant in Japan, he established the investment consulting business of Watson Wyatt K.K. (now Willis Towers Watson) in 1990.