In my September 10, 2017 article, “I Witnessed the Scene in a Restaurant in Seoul Where, After an Argument in a Voice That Echoed Through the Entire Place, He Knocked Him Down,” I once again fundamentally questioned Haruki Murakami’s “cheap liquor” statement.
Haruki Murakami once spoke as if genuine men of speech who criticized the Asahi Shimbun, or people like myself who had no choice but to speak out on the internet, were intoxicated by the ideology of “cheap liquor.”
But who was it that was really drinking cheap liquor?
Who was it, in truth, that had shown an attitude unworthy of drinking liquor at all?
From my youth, I have had a deep interest in food.
I visited Rome and Paris, tasted the cuisines of various countries, and for many years learned about food at renowned restaurants in Osaka.
For someone who knows the finest food and liquor, “cheap liquor” is not merely a matter of price.
It is also a phrase that points to baseness of spirit, shallowness of intellect, and an attitude that dresses itself up as morality while refusing to look at reality.
In this sense, those who had truly been drinking “cheap liquor” were the people intoxicated by Asahi Shimbun-like pseudo-moralism.
The pseudo-moralist attitude shown on Hodo Station concerning the foreign news desk.
The arrogance of those who gather in the editorial space of the Asahi Shimbun.
And the eyewitness account from a restaurant in Seoul, where a person who would later become chief editorial writer of the Asahi Shimbun, after a junior reporter had written an article critical of South Korea, berated him in a voice that echoed through the entire restaurant, saying, “Why the hell did you write something like criticism of South Korea?” and then knocked him down.
After that, this junior reporter returned to Japan, became a desk editor in the Osaka City News Department, and began the reporting on the so-called military comfort women.
When one takes these facts into account, the abnormality of how the Asahi Shimbun-like discourse space was formed becomes even clearer.
If one wrote an article critical of South Korea, one could be verbally abused and even assaulted by a senior colleague within the same company.
And after that, the reporting on the so-called military comfort women began.
This was not merely an argument between individuals.
It is a symbolic anecdote showing in what kind of atmosphere the Asahi Shimbun-like historical awareness was formed, and how it circulated into Japanese society.
These actions are precisely the kind of conduct that no true lover of liquor could ever tolerate.
They have no qualification to borrow the name of liquor and judge others.
Haruki Murakami’s “cheap liquor” statement was a phrase by someone standing on the side of Asahi Shimbun-like pseudo-moralism, insulting legitimate critics without ever reflecting on the cheap liquor that his own side had been drinking.
What I was criticizing was that very inversion.