Social Game and Virtual Research Institute

Abstract

As I write this memoir, I realize anew that my personal history is fully intertwined with contemporary history. Thus, when I receive comments from readers, such as “I was overcome with deep emotion that I live in contemporary times,” or “I recalled my mother, a high school teacher, transcribing teaching materials late into the night,” I feel we share something of our lives. As this was the first time I had written about the anti-Security Treaty struggles, those who knew my circumstances expressed concern, saying, “Are you all right having revealed so much?”; and those who didn’t know said, “I’m stunned that you had such a radical past.” However, I have no intention to talk about my behavior in those days by boasting about my exploits, and I expressed the reasons for not doing so in a frank manner (Chap. 10: Sugamo Prison and Anti-Security Treaty Struggle). I was always conscious that in those days I was a log, if not a leaf, pushed along in the torrent of history. This made me maintain my silence about that time. In re-evaluating what the anti-Security Treaty struggle meant by thinking about it from the standpoint of a “social scientist,” I came to feel that I wanted to impart my personal experiences of those days in a candid manner. An individual exists solely due to the world; and the world cannot exist without each individual’s actions.