True intentions often surface in brief rebuttals.
A moment on Japan’s prime-time news exposed deep-seated pseudo-moralism regarding security and vigilance.
The exchange revealed how reflexive moral posturing undermines clear-eyed judgment.

2016-03-26
There are moments when a person’s true feelings are revealed most clearly in a brief rebuttal.
Last night, with professional baseball opening, I switched channels from NHK to Hōdō Station on TV Asahi, thinking I might watch the sports segment on that program as well.
I changed channels intending to watch a news program, but instead found myself forced to watch something like an announcers’ reunion hosted by the anchor, Ichiro Furutachi.
He himself may not realize it, but one wonders what Masayuki Takayama—arguably the only genuine journalist of the postwar world—would say if he had watched last night’s spectacle.
Of course, Takayama would not recognize such a person as a journalist at all, but merely as a man who rose from professional wrestling-style announcing.
Last night, I found myself once again convinced of the correctness of Takayama’s assessment.
Now, to return to the opening point, the commentator last night was, astonishingly, Minomonta, and when he was asked to comment on the terrorist attacks in Belgium, he replied to the effect that Japan might not be safe, that it appeared completely defenseless, and that stricter vigilance and control systems should be implemented.
That was the moment.
Furutachi responded as follows.
“That may be true, but going too far in that direction is also problematic.”
What pseudo-moralism truly is, and how this man named Furutachi—raised on the Asahi Shimbun—has become a pseudo-moralist to the marrow of his bones, was taught to us more clearly than anything else by this very scene.
The ability to notice such things is what is called true discernment.