This essay examines an academic who wrote on the imperial system in Asahi Shimbun,
clearly acknowledging historical facts regarding Japan and the Korean Peninsula,
yet never challenging Asahi Shimbun’s editorials rooted in distorted ideology.
The author questions the responsibility of scholars and the meaning of intellectual courage.

September 29, 2016
I came to know the person who makes his living as a scholar, whom I deliberately described as a “youngster” in the previous chapter, around August of the year before last, that is, fairly recently, and the place was on the pages of Asahi Shimbun.
In a space large by ordinary standards, though smaller than today’s, he wrote an article on the imperial system.
Apparently, he is featured by Asahi because he is valued for his diligent manner of examining source materials.
In that article, he clearly wrote that Japan did not colonize the Korean Peninsula,
and that it was truly a friendly allied state that treated the Korean king as a member of the same royal lineage.
Yet I have never heard that he raised any objection
to the editorials of Asahi Shimbun’s editorial writers,
which assert that Japan colonized the Korean Peninsula and did wrong to its people—
editorials that are entirely identical to the Nazi- and fascism-like falsehoods fabricated from the lies of Syngman Rhee,
and are riddled with distortion and intellectual corruption.
Still less have I ever heard of him taking Asahi Shimbun to task.
That is why I call him a youngster.