This essay distinguishes what deserves respect in Shiba Ryōtarō’s thought from what must be rejected, exposing how GHQ-influenced ideology was transmitted through NHK and academic figures. It clarifies who truly played the leading role in the latter half of the program.

In other words, that latter segment was created by NHK employees who were his former students or devoted followers, using Shiba Ryōtarō as a pretext.
2016-11-24.
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
After this, I was deeply moved by the fact that Shiba cited “readiness to face death” as the most outstanding element of the warrior spirit, something unparalleled anywhere in the world throughout history.
As I wrote frivolously about him when I first appeared, I am by no means someone who evaluates Shiba Ryōtarō one hundred percent positively, yet regarding this particular point, I acknowledge Shiba Ryōtarō as truly great.
However, with respect to his views on Japan in the latter half of what he called the century of war, I do not admire them, nor do I agree with them in the slightest.
In short, I reject them.
This is because it would not be an exaggeration to say that during the mid-twentieth century, which was a century of war, all nations became militarized.
The century of war was the result of Western colonial competition.
One could even say that Western colonial expansion itself was the result of becoming military great powers.
If one defines militarism as the existence of so-called mobilization activities, including student conscription, this becomes clear.
Even the United States, which had enjoyed its own spring as the “turntable of civilization” rotated from Britain, became militarized the moment it entered the war.
As I wrote long ago, this is clearly shown in the film Since You Went Away, in which Jennifer Jones, whom I had been a devoted fan of since watching Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, plays the leading role and works in a factory as part of a mobilization effort.
In that film, she even delivers what could be called its central line, revealing where the true essence of the United States lies.
Korean organizations that include the term “mobilization corps” in their names and carry out relentless attacks on Japan by exploiting Asahi Shimbun’s lies for anti-Japanese propaganda must watch this film and the many Japanese documentary records from that time, recognize their own lies, and feel shame for their own “evil.”
Thus, with regard to Shiba’s ideas explained in the latter half, I do not agree at all.
This is because that part of his thinking was strongly influenced by the ideology implanted in the Japanese people by GHQ.
The circumstances that made such implantation necessary have been brilliantly elucidated by Masayuki Takayama in his lead column in this month’s issue of Sound Argument.
The fact that the principal figure in the latter half was Yoichi Higuchi, whom I recently criticized severely and who stands at the head of a group of foolish scholars claiming that a bill to clearly define the right of collective self-defense, a perfectly ordinary measure recognized by the United Nations for all member states, was a war bill or that the Abe cabinet was unconstitutional, not only demonstrated Shiba’s error,
but also proved that within NHK, which gleefully broadcast the utterly ridiculous event known as the “Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal,” orchestrated by the notorious activist Yayori Matsui in collusion with North Korean agents,
there still exist individuals, as Masayuki Takayama has conveyed, who poured into media organizations such as NHK by taking advantage of GHQ occupation policies, along with other left-leaning remnants similar to those in other media, occupying key posts even today.
In other words, it would not be an exaggeration at all to say that the latter segment was a propaganda broadcast in which NHK employees who were his students or devotees used Shiba Ryōtarō as a pretext to convey the ideology of Yoichi Higuchi and to implant anti-Abe administration sentiment in the Japanese people.
All viewers possessing true discernment should agree with me.
The true leading figure of the latter half of that special was not Shiba, but unmistakably Yoichi Higuchi.
To be continued.