Obsessing blindly over our `assigned duties'

　僕は英辞郎を使って英語を読みまくり、インターネットラジオのNHKのラジオジャパン英語ニュースで時事英語を聞きまくってます。（＾＾；また、VOAでヴォイスレコーダーにDLしたMP3音声とテキストも楽しんでます。
参考「こんな感じで英辞郎を使ってます」

Obsessing blindly over our `assigned duties'

08/16/2005

Because I was born two years after the end of World War II, obviously I was not around to experience the day of Japan's defeat 60 years ago on Aug. 15, 1945.

I can say, however, that this date has always been at the back of my consciousness.

Whenever I came across something that was related to this date or the days that preceded it, I was invariably compelled to ponder its meaning.

2005年08月15日（月曜日）付
【天声人語】

　終戦の翌々年の生まれなので、その日のことは直接には知らない。しかし昭和２０年、１９４５年の８月１５日は、頭のどこかに住みついているような気がする。この日を、あるいはこの日に至る日々を伝えるものに接する度に、その意味を考えさせられてきた。

Various people have noted their thoughts and feelings about Aug. 15, 1945, in their diaries.

Each observation is striking in its own way, but the one I would like to dwell upon anew in this 60th anniversary year is a passage from "Haisen Nikki" (Journal on defeat in war) by novelist Jiro Osaragi, published by Soshisha.

　さまざまな人の日記に、その日の思いが記されている。それぞれにひかれるものはあるが、「戦後還暦」の年に改めてかみしめたいのは作家・大佛次郎の『敗戦日記』（草思社）の一節だ。

Referring to his loss of sleep over worrying whether Japanese soldiers would be able to bear the indignity of defeat, Osaragi notes in part that the soldiers "had been taught to remain blind to anything other than their assigned duties ... ."

But this was not the lot of soldiers alone. The great majority of Japanese citizens had also been conditioned to focus solely on their "assigned duties."

　「自分に与えられし任務のみに目がくらみいるように指導せられ来たりしことにて……」。軍人たちが敗戦という屈辱に耐えうるかどうかを思い惑って眠れないというくだりだが、ことは軍人に限らない。

When the war began, every soldier, politician, parent and child blindly sought to live up to their respective ideal images.

Missing the crucially important overall picture-namely, where the nation was really headed-the Japanese people withdrew into their rigidly defined roles.

　「与えられた任務のみに目がくらんだ」のは、国民のほとんどだった。戦争が始まり、ことここに至っては軍人は軍人の、政治家は政治家の、あるいは親は親の、子は子のあるべきだとされる姿に向かって突き進んでしまった。国そのものの向きがどうなっているのかという肝心なことは見ず、それぞれに与えられたと思う狭い世界に閉じこもった。

There is something painfully pathetic about the intensity of their resolve.

But it was also this collective frenzy that allowed the nation to run amok and sacrifice the lives of a tremendous number of its own people as well as those of neighboring nations.

And I am pained to be reminded, too, of how the media pursued a grossly misguided cause.

　国民の、ある種のひたむきさには胸がつまる思いもするが、歯止めの無い奔流は、自国民だけではなく周辺国などを含むおびただしい人の命を奪い去った。メディアもまた、本来の任務を踏み外していたと自戒する。

Aug. 15 should be a day for each one of us to not only remember and mourn the dead, but also to ask ourselves once again whether we are still obsessing blindly over what we imagine to be our assigned duties.

I pray that our present postwar era will never go down in history some day as another prewar era.

　今日は追悼というだけではなく、与えられた任務のみに目がくらんでいないかどうか、それぞれの場で問い返したい。この今を「戦前」などと呼ぶ日の来ることがないように。

--The Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 15(IHT/Asahi: August 16,2005)