The two chapters of September 22 and September 24, 2017 show the core of my thought.
By this time, my criticism of Haruki Murakami was no longer criticism of a single writer.
I was presenting the very definition of what true art is.
That definition is the following sentence:
Artists are precious because they shine light on hidden truths and concealed truths, and give them expression.
This sentence is my view of literature, my view of art, and also my view of civilization.
Art is not merely writing beautiful sentences.
Nor is it arranging pleasant-sounding words.
To discover truths that people do not yet know, truths that have been deliberately concealed, and truths buried in the darkness of history, and to give them expression — that is the mission of the artist.
In this sense, Masayuki Takayama is a true artist.
He has dug up the hidden truths of the postwar world and continued to convey them to both the Japanese people and the world.
Even if only to read his essays, every Japanese citizen must go to the nearest bookstore immediately.
That is what I wrote.
It was by no means an exaggeration.
Masayuki Takayama is the one and only journalist in the postwar world.
He has written what the Asahi Shimbun and the Western media do not write.
He has restored to the Japanese people facts that they had not been told.
He has shone light on hidden truths and concealed truths, and given them expression.
That is why I call him a true artist.
What, then, of Haruki Murakami?
I have not evaluated him as an artist who illuminates truth.
Rather, I have criticized him as an existence that circulates throughout the world, in the form of literature, a historical awareness formed within the Asahi Shimbun-like discourse space.
His reference to 400,000 in the Nanjing Incident.
His statement to the effect that Japan must continue apologizing forever to China and the Korean Peninsula.
These do not shine light on hidden truths.
They were words that could, as a result, serve Asahi Shimbun-like pseudo-moralism, a masochistic view of history, and anti-Japanese propaganda by China and South Korea.
My criticism was not about literary technique.
Nor was it a question of whether the writing was skillful or poor.
What I was questioning was the essence of art.
Is one a person who illuminates truth?
Or is one a person who gives literary decoration to false historical awareness?
This difference is decisive.
In the chapter of September 24, 2017, I further discussed what reporting is.
What I showed there was a theory of journalism: the greatest problem is precisely not writing the truly important facts.
The Asahi Shimbun does not write the essential points.
It does not write the most important parts.
It conceals the facts that readers truly need to know, and constructs another story.
That is the essence of the Asahi Shimbun.
This corresponds completely to the problem I have long continued to describe as “bottomless evil” and “plausible lies.”
A lie is not only writing the opposite of the facts.
Not writing the most important facts.
Concealing the essential background.
Guiding public opinion with words that appear moral while withholding the core needed for readers’ judgment.
This too is a plausible lie.
The Asahi Shimbun-like discourse space has misled the Japanese people in this way.
Kenzaburo Oe and Haruki Murakami are existences that were created and elevated within that discourse space.
That is why I have criticized them severely.
The writings I continued to produce from 2011 to 2017 have a consistent axis.
It is not mere literary theory.
Nor is it mere political theory.
Nor is it mere historical theory.
What I have continued to question is the thought that discovering truth and conveying it to the world is the noblest activity of human beings.
That is why I highly value Masayuki Takayama.
That is why I highly value Yoshiko Sakurai.
And that is why I severely criticize Haruki Murakami.
My standard of evaluation is consistent.
Is the person one who shines light on hidden truths?
Is the person one who conveys concealed truths to the world?
Or is the person one who gives verbal decoration to false historical awareness and circulates it throughout the world?
That is the single point.
For more than fifteen years, I have not been criticizing one writer named Haruki Murakami alone.
What I have continued to question is the fundamental issue common to human civilization: who is the person who speaks the truth, what is art, and what is intellect?
To shine light on hidden truths and concealed truths, and to give them expression.
That is the mission of the artist.
That is the mission of the intellect that advances civilization.