Japan succeeded in containing the first wave of COVID-19.
However, Shinobu Sakagami described Japan’s low death toll as merely “a fortunate result,” while LaSalle Ishii called the government’s response “pure luck.”
Hidenori Kakehi argues that such reactions reflect a deeper tendency within left-wing thought to treat its own worldview as absolute while dismissing scientific laws and expert knowledge.

July 2, 2020
For example, on Fuji Television’s Viking, the television personality Shinobu Sakagami described Japan’s low number of deaths from the novel coronavirus as merely “a fortunate result.”
The following is a continuation of the preceding chapter.
The Left in Conflict with Natural Scientists
Japan succeeded in containing the first wave.
We can only be grateful for the efforts of the government officials and healthcare professionals who achieved this result.
Nevertheless, many people are incapable of giving them the recognition they deserve.
For example, on Fuji Television’s Viking, the television personality Shinobu Sakagami described Japan’s low number of deaths from the novel coronavirus as merely “a fortunate result.”
The comedian LaSalle Ishii also wrote on Twitter that the government’s successful response to the novel coronavirus was nothing more than “pure luck.”
Such reactions are often characteristic of the left.
People with left-wing beliefs frequently lack an awareness that there are limits to what any one individual can understand.
Of course, they recognize that there are things they do not know.
However, by assuming that anything they cannot understand has no meaningful reason to exist, they often acquire the self-confidence that they have grasped the entire world.
This attitude—that the worldview existing inside their own minds is everything—appears to have been strongly influenced by Sartrean existentialism.
For this reason, the left frequently denies the universality of scientific laws and assumes that its own beliefs are always correct.
The left is therefore destined to come into conflict with natural scientists.
In the past, the left has turned civil engineering into an enemy through the fantasy of the “green dam”—flood control that does not rely on dams or levees.
It has turned physics into an enemy through false claims about radiation.
It has also turned electrical engineering into an enemy by promoting unrealistic forms of renewable energy.
Therefore, anyone familiar with the left’s previous conduct should not be surprised that Tetsuro Fukuyama, then secretary-general of the Constitutional Democratic Party and a member of the House of Councillors, insulted Dr. Shigeru Omi—a physician widely respected by healthcare professionals—during proceedings in the Diet.
To be continued.