Drawing on Sankei’s column and Akutagawa Ryunosuke’s aphorisms, this article contrasts hollow political rhetoric with the grounded intuition of ordinary citizens, examining Kono Yohei’s remarks and Asahi Shimbun’s framing to expose distortions in political discourse.

Indeed, the intuition of the people is far more sound than that of heavyweight politicians who brandish half-baked and incoherent knowledge and opinions.
2016-12-24
While on a train heading toward Arashiyama, which is like my own garden, a close friend told me that today’s Sankei column was very good and handed me the Sankei Shimbun.
“Compared with us laymen in politics, the only political knowledge politicians can truly boast of is a confused accumulation of factual trivia.”
Ryunosuke Akutagawa mocked politicians this way in his collection of aphorisms Dwarf Words, in the piece titled “A Politician,” and went on to say.
“In the end, it is knowledge little different from knowing what kind of hat the leader of a certain party happens to wear.”
This is a harsh dismissal of the quality of politicians’ knowledge and judgment, yet the column does not entirely agree.
That is because there can also be an accumulation of political wisdom based on diverse experience and reflection.
Still, there are times when one feels compelled to agree wholeheartedly.
In the morning edition of December 23 of the Asahi Shimbun, an interview article with former Speaker of the House of Representatives Yohei Kono appeared.
Kono, who had visited Pearl Harbor in Hawaii eight years earlier, commented on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s memorial visit to Pearl Harbor and spoke of his own impressions at the time.
“I felt that it was only natural that there was considerable anger toward Japan among the people of China and South Korea.”
He seems to have drawn this from the former Japanese military’s attack on Pearl Harbor, but the logic is entirely unclear.
It is also unreasonable to discuss China alongside South Korea, which at the time was part of Japan.
Is he trapped by a sense of atonement toward China and South Korea no matter what he sees or hears.
The Asahi reporter’s supplementary explanation of Kono’s words is also incomprehensible.
It says that he “implicitly urged the prime minister to show consideration toward China and South Korea.”
In a visit to Pearl Harbor intended to stage a historic “reconciliation” with the United States, with which Japan fought a fierce war, what consideration toward China and South Korea is being demanded.
To begin with, Japan did not fight a war with South Korea.
I have also argued regarding the politically minded “barbershop politicians” among ordinary citizens that “when it comes to insight, they are not necessarily inferior to professional politicians.”
Indeed, the intuition of the people is far more sensible than that of prominent politicians who flaunt half-baked and incoherent knowledge and opinions.