Centering on the medieval samurai ethos of “name above all” and “a man lives one lifetime, his name endures forever,” this essay draws on the thought of Ryōtarō Shiba and Inazō Nitobe to criticize the Asahi Shimbun’s editorial writers and the opposition politicians influenced by them for undermining Japan’s honor and national vision.

2016-05-20

Medieval samurai fought bravely while saying, “Name above all,” and “A man lives one lifetime, his name endures for generations.”
The reality is that the result of the Asahi Shimbun’s editorial writers—who were, for the Japanese state and the Japanese people, something outrageous—having dominated Japan has led to today’s extremely unstable world.
Ryōtarō Shiba said that the Kamakura samurai were, so to speak, the prototype of the Japanese people, and that their spirit was “name above all.”
The following quotation is from http://kigyoka.com/news/magazine/magazine_20130618.html.
Medieval samurai fought bravely while saying, “Name above all,” and “A man lives one lifetime, his name endures for generations.” They sought to achieve distinguished martial exploits that would leave their names to posterity and wished for the prosperity of their descendants.
Inazō Nitobe wrote, while comparing it with Western chivalry, that bushidō born of Japan’s feudal system constitutes Japan’s moral framework. He explained its substance by listing such elements as “righteousness,” “courage,” “benevolence,” “courtesy,” “sincerity,” “honor,” and “loyalty.”
The Asahi Shimbun is not a gathering of Japanese.
That is why, throughout the postwar period, instead of cherishing the honor of Japan and the Japanese—especially the honor cultivated by the Japanese over the past two thousand years—they have, unbelievably, stood on the side of the Chinese and Koreans and damaged the name of Japan and the Japanese.
What makes this even worse is that almost all of it has been done through lies.
They entirely lacked the spirit that any competent manager would possess—the resolve to make their own country larger and stronger.
Instead, what existed was the notion that large corporations are evil, a belief that would be unthinkable in any country other than Japan, as any Asahi subscriber should silently understand.
Not only were they raised reading the Asahi Shimbun, but among the opposition politicians who have made this company’s articles and the writings of its editorial writers their own intellect, there is not a single one who comes to the Diet with a grand design to make this country larger and stronger.
They are a gathering of kindergarten children who think politics is attacking the government with shrill voices and media-conscious glances—no, it is no exaggeration to say they are a group of Koreans and Chinese who relentlessly attack or demean Japan, or who gleefully devote themselves to damaging the name of Japan and the Japanese people.
What the Asahi’s editorial writers are saying, put simply, is that big business is evil and the Liberal Democratic Party is evil; minds shaped by such rhetoric are those of Japan’s opposition politicians.
To be continued.