Nuclear Energy as a Double-Edged Sword: Takashi Okai’s Lifelong Inquiry into Human Wisdom and Responsibility
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Takashi Okai, both a physician and a leading figure in Japan’s avant-garde tanka movement, regarded nuclear energy as a “double-edged sword,” comparable to medicine.
Even after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, he did not abandon his trust in nuclear energy and continued to express his convictions in poetry without yielding to criticism.
This article introduces Okai’s thought and life through the Sankei Shō column published on July 14, 2020.

2020-07-14
Takashi Okai, who was also a physician, once compared atomic energy, a double-edged sword, to medicine.
The aging society brought about by the advancement of medicine cannot necessarily be described as a happy one.
That does not mean, however, that medicine itself can be rejected.
On July 14, 2020, Sankei Shō published a column describing how the poet Takashi Okai regarded nuclear power and confronted the political and social questions of his time.
Although Okai recognized the dangers inherent in nuclear energy, he did not believe that those dangers justified rejecting the achievements of science and human intelligence themselves.
The following is from the July 14, 2020 edition of Sankei Shō.
Emphasis within the text is mine.
Takashi Okai, one of the foremost figures in the world of tanka poetry, was once described, together with Shūji Terayama, Kunio Tsukamoto and others, as a leading standard-bearer of the avant-garde tanka movement.
Avant-garde tanka differed from traditional tanka, which had valued realistic description.
It introduced fictional elements and boldly addressed political and social questions.
For Okai, those “political and social questions” included nuclear power, which he had studied in a physics lecture at an old-system high school.
〈If I am to perish, let me die beneath the atom,
for human wisdom lies there, darkly congealed.〉
The poem was written around 1983.
Even though nuclear energy possessed a dark and dangerous side, it also contained a concentration of human wisdom.
Although his words carried a note of irony, Okai supported the advancement of the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
Okai, who was also a physician, once compared atomic energy, a double-edged sword, to medicine.
The aging society brought about by the advancement of medicine cannot necessarily be described as a happy one.
That does not mean, however, that medicine itself can be rejected.
His thinking remained unchanged even after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake.
〈Might the nuclear plant itself rather be the victim?
I tried defending it in a small voice.〉
〈My trust in nuclear energy remains unshaken even now—
yet, and yet again.〉
〈Nuclear power is no witch,
but being with her is exhausting
—as though fighting against fate.〉
Although expressed only in a “small voice,” his poems accepting nuclear power provoked controversy.
“You are the only person in all the Japanese newspapers who has written in defence of nuclear power.
You will be subjected to a public beating.”
Even when those around him warned him in this way, he remained completely unmoved.
Some also questioned whether an “avant-garde” poet should serve as a judge for the Imperial New Year’s Poetry Reading or as a special adviser to the Imperial Household Agency, advising Their Majesties the Emperor and Empress on waka poetry.
Okai never offered excuses in response to such criticism.
He has now brought his 92-year life to an end.
It is said that he maintained his interest in society until shortly before his death and continued composing poems about the novel coronavirus.
Okai did not praise nuclear power unconditionally.
As the words “yet, and yet again” reveal, he experienced a profound inner conflict between his continuing trust in nuclear energy and the reality created by the nuclear accident.
Nevertheless, he refused to condemn nuclear energy as an absolute and uncomplicated evil.
Just as medicine can save human lives while also producing an aging society and new forms of suffering, nuclear power also possesses two aspects: benefit and danger.
What matters is not to reject science merely because danger exists.
What matters is to recognize its dangers correctly, control them through human wisdom and responsibility, and continue pursuing safer forms of use.
Takashi Okai continued to express what he believed in his poetry without fearing criticism or isolation.
In that truest sense, he remained an avant-garde poet until the very end of his life.