2010/9/29

This essay, written in 2010, critiques the authoritarianism of Japan’s intellectual elite and expresses my vision, formed through my own life experience, of what constitutes a true elite.
It argues that true elites emerge from the working class, not from hereditary privilege, and that the fixed dominance of elites has misled Japan for decades.
Television networks, the entertainment industry, and major newspapers are indicted as institutions that perpetuate shallow authority and have weakened Japan’s social fabric.

◎ With Apologies to the Great Tadao Umesao…
September 29, 2010
The other day, in the lower section of a newspaper, I saw the promotional copy for his book.
It read: “With apologies to the great Umesao Tadao… Readers may well think that my intellect is remarkably similar to his own.”
He might well scold me from heaven for saying so.
I despise nothing more than the authoritarianism of intellectuals—and so did he.
Why?
Let me explain my interpretation.
Human beings, I once wrote in Civilization’s Turntable, are divided into two broad classes: an elite minority of perhaps 10% whose annual income exceeds ten million yen, and the working class—up to 99%—who labor all their lives for five million yen.
Of course, there are always those who exceed these numbers, but broadly speaking, this is the division.
True elites are those who must not think of themselves.
Their role is austere; happiness is not their concern.
By contrast, the working class may think only of their own happiness and that of their families.
To say they are unhappy merely because their incomes are lower is wrong.
But this division must never become fixed.
Absolute power absolutely corrupts.
The classes must remain fluid.
True elites emerge suddenly, almost as genetic mutations, and they always arise from the 90% majority of the working class.
That is why hereditary succession is something to be despised.
The authoritarianism of intellectuals produces the opposite: the rigidification of society.
This is why adults despise it, and so do I.
What does it create?
Newspapers made by and for local notables; politics that resemble the feudal rule of wealthy patrons.
Readers, as you surely know, both in the past and in the present moment, the evidence is plain: the authoritarianism of elites has consistently led the nation astray.
For the past year and a half, we have watched the proof of this unfold live before our eyes.
An endless parade of mediocrity created under the pretense of lofty authority.
That has been the story of the last twenty years.
Television filled with shallow actors who are little more than frauds; actresses and so-called beauties who wear the same expressions and laugh the same way; foolish young idols filling up variety programs.
Television that, not content with earning vast sums, kneels before comedians who proclaim themselves geniuses—and treats them as such.
Some among them have privatized journalism itself, behaving on public broadcasting as if they were local bosses from their home regions.
Such behavior has been permitted and enabled by self-styled intellectuals running the stations.
And yet, when news time arrives, they suddenly don the mask of righteous avengers, like “Moonlight Mask,” to hand down proclamations.
Tokyo alone houses five or six such “elite” networks, still acting like a religious cult of fools well into the 21st century.
Here are more than thirty thousand members of this so-called elite class—a ridiculous spectacle.
Their parent companies are the major newspapers which, day after day, sermonize with “great opinions,” only to mislead the nation.
This is the reality of Japan’s intellectual authoritarianism.
And this is why Umesao Tadao, the great man, and I both despised it.