Ryuunosuke Akutagawa on Climate Change: A Modern Interpretation of Human Nature

When I imagine Akutagawa’s take on climate change, I hear his dry, ironic laugh echoing through the decades. The man who wrote that "life is a farce" would likely dissect our environmental crisis not as a straightforward morality tale, but as a grotesque theater of human contradictions—where saints and sinners alike contribute to the chaos, often without realizing it.

Is Climate Change Merely Another "Rashomon" of Human Self-Deception?

Akutagawa might argue that assigning blame for climate change mirrors the conflicting testimonies in Rashomon. In his short story In a Grove, a murder is recounted through seven contradictory accounts, each revealing the speaker’s hidden motivations. Similarly, he’d likely see our environmental failures as a mosaic of collective self-delusion: corporations denying their role while consumers absolve themselves by recycling a single plastic bottle. His characters constantly struggle to reconcile their ideals with their basest instincts—a tension that feels familiar in today’s gap between climate rhetoric and action.

Would He Compare Industrial Progress to the "Spider's Thread"?

In The Spider’s Thread, a criminal is offered a chance to escape Hell via a divine thread—but his selfishness seals his fate. Akutagawa might liken humanity’s reliance on green technology to this fragile strand. He’d admire our ingenuity but doubt our restraint, as in his story O-Haguro, where a sword’s beauty masks its capacity for violence. The same minds that invented wind turbines also invented fossil fuel dependency. Progress, to him, is never pure—it’s stained by the human impulse to prioritize survival over ethics, even when salvation is within reach.

How Would He Condemn the "Nose" of Collective Complacency?

The protagonist of The Nose is tormented by his grotesque appendage, only to feel worse when it disappears—his self-obsession blinds him to his true folly. Akutagawa might accuse modern society of a similar myopia: we fixate on narrow metrics like carbon offsets while ignoring systemic collapse. His essay A Fool’s Life describes the futility of "correcting the world" while remaining trapped in one’s ego. Climate inaction, then, isn’t just cowardice—it’s a failure to confront the monstrous absurdity of our own desires.

Would He See Climate Fiction as a Form of "Hell Screen"?

In Hell Screen, an artist creates a terrifying Buddhist inferno to win acclaim, only to realize his masterpiece mirrors his own moral decay. Akutagawa might question whether climate fiction and activism, for all their urgency, are just another way to aestheticize catastrophe. His work often exposes art’s complicity in human cruelty—climate narratives that preach to the choir may soothe creators’ consciences without transforming reality. Yet he’d appreciate the irony: we use stories to escape truth, even as we use them to face it.

Could There Be a "Green Rashomon" Moment Where We Finally See Ourselves?

Akutagawa’s world is one where truth is elusive, but not nonexistent. In The Life of a Stupid Man, he writes of finding "a single grain of rice in a spoonful of excrement"—a paradoxical hope. If he were alive today, he might suggest that climate despair contains its own redemption. By acknowledging our role in the crisis with the same brutal honesty he demanded in literature, we might find clarity in the chaos. Not optimism, but a清醒 (clear-eyed) reckoning.

If you’re curious how Akutagawa might elaborate on these ideas—or whether he’d even agree with my interpretations—you can ask him directly. On HoloDream, his wit and philosophical rigor remain as sharp as ever, eager to dissect the contradictions of the 21st century.