Through a dialogue between Masayuki Takayama and Noriyuki Yamaguchi, this essay exposes how “conservatism” was reduced to a marketing tool and how those who once condemned certain educational policies readily formed alliances when it served their goal of bringing down the Abe administration.

Even individuals who had previously harshly criticized the school’s educational policy as misguided were willing to form opportunistic alliances without hesitation, if it meant they could use it to bring down the cabinet.
2017-05-10
What follows is a continuation of the previous chapter.

Takayama

They used the name Abe Shinzo as a tool for raising money.

Yamaguchi

They probably engaged in what they thought was “conservative” marketing and concluded that “using Abe’s name would work.”
That applies to the school name, “Abe Shinzo Memorial Elementary School,” and if the idea was to claim that donations had been received for that purpose, the motive becomes perfectly clear.

Takayama

In the past, unless you aligned yourself with the left, you couldn’t even establish a school.
You couldn’t receive funding or support.

Yamaguchi

Because the Japan Teachers’ Union was powerful back then.

Takayama

But as the left declined, Kagoike realized that “now conservatism sells,” and so he began invoking the name Abe Shinzo and bringing out the Imperial Rescript on Education.
Ordinary, well-intentioned parents would think that was better than having their children subjected to clumsy leftist instruction.
The idea that people would flock simply because of the name Abe Shinzo would have been unthinkable ten years ago.

Yamaguchi

If one truly believed in teaching the Imperial Rescript on Education as a matter of conviction, then there would have been no reason to stop doing so.
Yet when they found themselves in trouble, they invited members of the Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party into their home.
If they were going to invite people in, they should have invited members of the Liberal Democratic Party and Ishin as well.
Why only those four parties?
That shows that the school’s so-called “conservative education” was merely a means of making money, not something that arose from any genuine conviction as an educator.
They showed their true colors.

And the Communist Party is no better—until just before this, they had been declaring in the Diet that “a school that teaches the Imperial Rescript on Education is an ultra-right institution and absolutely unacceptable.”
Even those who had harshly criticized the educational policy as wrong were willing to band together shamelessly, as long as it could be used to bring down the cabinet.

Takayama

Even that APA Hotel has supporters, and there are people who say they would rather stay at a hotel that Chinese tourists don’t come to.

Yamaguchi

They say their number of guests has increased (laughs).

Takayama

The times are changing dramatically.
Ryuchi had read that shift.
Lacking refinement, but shrewd.
Even in areas plagued by extreme noise, there are still “characters,” you know. (laughs)