2011-2-19
The most important thing in democracy is not to create taboos—prohibitions—and not to allow them to exist….
Let me put taboos—prohibitions—in simpler and plainer terms….
I do not want to become involved; I do not want to say it aloud….
Some needless misfortune might befall me—heaven preserve us, heaven preserve us….
It would be better not to touch upon such things.
The reason America is strong, the reason America is the greatest in the world, is that it has none of these taboos—prohibitions….
Conversely, other countries are weak because they have taboos.
The reason I vehemently despise the current administration’s executive leadership—the faction of Prime Minister Kan—and the Ryōunkai—a group of no more than about fifty people—is that, while calling themselves the Democratic Party, they sided with anti-democracy….
It is because they used taboos.
It is for the same reason that I call the editorial writer who wrote this morning’s editorial in the Asahi Shimbun the lowest kind of “vulgar.”
Being a university professor or an outstanding student does not mean that one understands the truth of things.
The truth of things is something that only the Gifted can understand.
Only a person who belongs to nothing, worships nothing, and possesses true freedom can see the truth of things….
When Nobunaga is described as “a man whose ties with father, child, and brothers had been severed,” that is what it means.
Because people do not understand even when the Gifted are described as people without “egoism,” problems will always exist in countries where there are taboos.
Your “self” says… I am a graduate of the University of Tokyo.
I am a lawyer.
I already know that….
It is impossible for such a “self” to have overcome taboos.
That is because, at the very moment you say, “I already know that,” you have been ensnared by a taboo.
For the rest, please buy and read one installment of Chapter Two of my The Turntable of Civilization for 220 yen….
A “writer” is someone who takes responsibility toward his readers.
Or someone who lives his life taking responsibility toward his readers….
As Le Clézio compared that relationship to a single tree about forty years ago….
I, a bird perched on one branch, write.
You, perched on the branch on the opposite side, read….
That is art.
As for why genuine artists are important beings—and they truly are very few in number, although there are countless pseudo-artists throughout the world—please refer to the words of the professor at Monaco’s ballet school that I quoted in Chapter One.