ACCEPTING REALITY
In World War II, Japan was defeated by the United States. In April 1945, American troops landed in Japan. General Douglas MacArthur was appointed Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in Japan, where he remained until 1951. Under his guidance, Japan’s new constitution was drafted and passed by the Japanese assembly on November 3, 1946.
This constitution reduced the emperor of Japan to the status of a symbolic ruler. Article 9 declared that the Japanese nation would never again maintain an army, navy, or air force, nor make any military preparations of any kind:
Land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained (Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol. 10, p. 87).
On the surface, this constitution appeared to mean Japan’s permanent national death. But Japan’s leaders wisely accepted it completely. They realized that while the constitution blocked the path of military and political action, it left fully open the path of science and industry. The Japanese nation withdrew from the battlefield of war and politics and began to use the remaining opportunities in knowledge and industry. Within just forty years, historians were writing these words about Japan:
Defeated in World War II (1945), Japan emerged from the ruins of war as one of the major economic powers in the world (Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol. 5, p. 519).
Accepting the present opens the way to the future. Those who refuse to accept the present deprive themselves of the greater possibilities of the future as well.
