This is a chapter I published on August 12, 2010, under the title “Conviction. And a Request to My Readers.”
This article, too, had disappeared from search results after being subjected to the criminal act of search interference by a man whom readers know well.
I am republishing it after correcting its paragraph breaks and other formatting.
I am convinced that I have not only written a Wealth of Nations for the twenty-first century, setting out how to create twenty-first-century capitalism instead of twentieth-century capitalism ruled by greed and cunning—and how Japan can do so right now—but that I have also emerged as a Marx for the twenty-first century.
Please read what I have written repeatedly about classes, elites, and workers.
The reason my writing has taken on that significance is that I pointed out how severe the responsibilities of elites are.
I pointed out that divisions between people arise even in a society that is not a class society.
I pointed out that society divides into the ten percent who are assured an annual income of more than ten million yen and the ninety percent who earn five million yen a year even after working all their lives.
What made me, without intending it, emerge as a Marx for the twenty-first century was my explanation that these divisions are not fixed.
I made clear that they must never be allowed to become fixed.
I rejected hereditary succession almost completely—especially when those who inherit a position lack real ability.
I made clear that people must constantly move between the elite and the working class.
I made clear that this movement is inevitable.
I made clear that outstanding people—elites—appear almost like sudden mutations in every field.
What made my argument decisive was that I rejected what has been said, in stereotyped terms, over and over again about the ninety percent who are workers, and set out the truth as follows.
I completely broke down the notion of a working class without dreams or hope.
On these points, please read “The Responsibilities of Elites Are Severe” and my other writings.
I made clear that workers are, in fact, the people most able to enjoy a carefree and happy life.
I wrote fully about their happiness—the happiness of living for themselves and their families alone.
It saddens me that there seems to be no publisher in Japan who understands what a waste it would be for my writing to remain only here.
The other day, I decided that simply feeling sad would achieve nothing. I could not bear the thought of the truths in my writing being buried in a country with the mental age of a thirteen-year-old. I thought it might be better to place my writing in America, the one country today founded on the highest degree of intellect and freedom.
I would, of course, make clear that Japan’s creation of twenty-first-century capitalism would in no way threaten the United States as the first true hegemonic power in human history. Its purpose would be to bring forward the day when genuine “peace on Earth” comes to a world of 6.5 billion people—a world the United States cannot support alone.
So this time, there is no need whatsoever for needless objections, interruptions, or threats.
Japan has realized that it should save the world together with you.
Japan has recognized its role.
I want America to know that Japan has become aware of “The Turntable of Civilization” and need only carry out its role.
If any of my readers can translate my writing into English perfectly and without difficulty, I would like to ask them to do so.
Of course, I will pay a proper fee for the work.
I believe my English is as good as most people’s and that I have a good feel for the language. The trouble is that I have not used English, or written in it, for thirty years, so it would be better for me not to translate my work myself.
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But no translator came forward, so, as readers know, I began translating my work myself. As you also know, my English translations are now frequently judged to be on a par with articles in The New York Times, and as a result, my translations into other languages have also become dramatically more accurate.
If there is a reader with excellent English skills, I would like that person to translate “Stradivarius” and two other books that I will eventually begin writing—no, everything I continue to write for the rest of my life.
On the question of why so many people over the age of one hundred were recently found to be missing,
I read an article in which a university professor wrote, “It is hard to believe that something like this could happen, but… with the shift toward nuclear families and other changes, Japanese society has lost its understanding and philosophy of death. Death is no longer perceived as something real…” Reading it gave me something close to a sense of urgency.
Readers who look deeply beneath the surface of a text will notice that life and death are always present together in my writing.
In this respect, too, the time for my work to reach the public had long since come.
As readers know, Kenji Akutagawa was my original pen name. A criminal whom readers know well impersonated Kenji Akutagawa and committed acts of defamation on an almost unbelievable scale. Although he confessed, “Everything was my doing,” when questioned by the police during a criminal investigation, Google, Twitter, Facebook, and other companies took no action. With a heavy heart, I therefore changed my pen name to Haruo Nara… I no longer use that name at all, either. I now write under my real name, MIKIO KISARA（木皿幹雄）.
When I write of grandfathers and grandmothers, I write with tears in my eyes for the finite life from which none of us can escape—no, I write weeping and sobbing.
It is not for nothing that I have read everything by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa and hold him in deep respect, or that I praise Kenji Miyazawa’s Night on the Galactic Railroad as the greatest book.
Ibis
One day I too
Will go into the cold shadows beneath the earth
Everyone must die once, after all!
How sad—
A finite life in a finite body
Ibis
Bird of the banks of the Nile
(G. Apollinaire)