This essay reflects on the author’s realization of the intellectual influence of The Turntable of Civilization
and identifies the identical sophistry used by both Kenzaburō Ōe and Asahi Shimbun to evade accountability.
It exposes rhetorical maneuvers employed to escape consequences that should have been confronted.

2016-03-27
The other day, as soon as I arrived in Kyoto, the sky turned overcast.
I gave up on photography and decided to read a book at the Starbucks beneath Kyoto Station.
I was reading a book by Hideto Kusaka when a sudden thought struck me.
I wondered whether my Turntable of Civilization might have given great inspiration even to people like Mr. Kusaka.
In July 2010, amid the extraordinary confusion surrounding the redevelopment of Umeda’s North Yard, I resolved that I had no choice but to appear on the internet, and began writing The Turntable of Civilization.
Many of Japan’s finest minds read it.
Now, books are beginning to be published that clearly recognize and boldly proclaim that Japan is in fact a magnificent country, a nation possessing the greatest freedom and intellect in the world.
I became convinced that my Turntable of Civilization, a Nobel Prize–class concept and discovery, had provided major inspiration to these authors.
It was at that moment that my companion, a close friend and one of Japan’s most avid readers, said to me, “Read this part of the book I’m reading.”
Although deeply absorbed in Kusaka’s book, I paused and read the volume he handed me.
It was Masayuki Takayama’s Thirty-Five Exhilarating Chapters to Awaken the Japanese.
I was truly astonished.
At the time, I had been wondering what had become of the lawsuit brought by the bereaved families of Japanese soldiers, who claimed that the descriptions originating in Kenzaburō Ōe’s Okinawa Notes were false, erroneous, and defamatory to the honor of the deceased.
The passage my friend pointed out addressed precisely that issue.
After finishing the chapter, I said, “Ōe is despicable.”
The reason was that the sophistry employed by Ōe and Asahi Shimbun at that time was identical to the sophistry Asahi later used at its apology press conference in August, invoking a third-party committee.
It was exactly the same sophistry, contrived to escape the severe consequences that should have been borne—consequences from which there is no question that the proper course for a true journalistic institution would have been closure itself.