Using Tolstoy’s “two kinds of people” as a lens, this entry defines who should read the author’s book, reflects on Confucius and a tweet from Yoko Ono, notes markets reacting to expert comments, and indicts how TV and newspaper editorials shape public opinion. It closes by revisiting Ogata Korin’s life and legacy.

Tolstoy said at the beginning of War and Peace that only two kinds of human beings exist.
March 24, 2011.

What do I want my book to be?
Tolstoy said at the beginning of War and Peace that only two kinds of human beings exist.
“Those who try to see the strengths in others, and those who try to find their faults and shortcomings.”
If you are always the sort of person who looks for others’ faults and shortcomings, you probably have no need to read my book.
Such people make few mistakes—
But we must keep in mind that there are many cases in which they become the ones who bring war and exhaust the people.
If instead you try to see others’ strengths and are by nature kind at heart, then I want you to read my book.
Why?
Because villains will always draw near you—whether strangers or blood relatives.
At such moments, I want this to be the book that makes you say to the villain who appears,
“Go back and read Kisara’s book and learn what a human being is, what the world is, and then come again.”
Or, “Read The Turntable of Civilization, wash your face, and come back.”

Early this morning NHK aired World Heritage, about Confucius and his lineage.
I knew Confucius was born in Shandong Province—
Because I had once looked it up in amazement that even Shandong alone now has close to one hundred million people.
But I had forgotten that Confucius lived in the 300s BCE.
That the Analects is a product of the pre-Christian era, and that those who take it as gospel are unending—
From innumerable politicians to those who influenced them—
And that it still has influence even now—this left me with complex feelings.

Just now, when I was about to tweet, a tweet from Yoko Ono popped up.
While I was walking in Kyoto the other day, her song echoed in my mind—
“A dream you dream alone is only a dream, but a dream you dream together becomes reality.”
For some reason, tears welled up in me.

“What use are platinum, gold, or jewels?
There is no treasure that surpasses a child.”
Watching the NHK news just now, that thought came to me.
In a capitalist society—or in any society, really—it is the same in the end.
As I wrote before, the world is made up of ten percent elite and ninety percent ordinary people.
I will write what follows later.

“U.S. expert: One would have to drink 52 gallons of Tokyo water to reach the U.S. annual permissible dose.”
This was news distributed by Fisco at 12:38.
The stock market, presumably in response, rose sharply as soon as the afternoon session opened.
People who always offer after-the-fact commentary never truly serve the world or others.
I will probably write about these things in my newsletter—
It will be a broadside unlike anything you have seen.
One thing only—since I have already outlived the age at which I would have died in the Edo period, I will say this without affectation or concealment:
I was born with a brain surpassing those who have raised loud voices in the world of commentary these past twenty years.
You may think of me as on par with a taijin—a true great personage.
I say this without any pretense or reserve.
I have lived a life entirely different from theirs, so I write from a perspective entirely different from theirs—
Which is to say, a text that could only be mine, a role given me by God:
To indict the essential sickness that still remains in this country—
And at the same time to proclaim a Japan-born Declaration of the 21st Century, which ought naturally to have been our role, and to establish the 21st-century human being.
My mission is simply to keep writing for that purpose.

Where and how has public opinion been formed?
By the mere 290,000-circulation Shūkan Asahi?
For example, regarding nuclear power, why were the voices of those who wrote in last week’s Shūkan Asahi not made into public opinion?
Or the person on a reader’s blog who left me a peta today and lectured for about an hour—
I listened attentively—
He even chaired a nuclear conference held in Japan.
Why did I, shortly after beginning to write, start carving into the heart of the mass media—first television, then the editorialists—
And why am I still spending time writing about them now?
Where and how has public opinion been formed?
By the mere 290,000-circulation Shūkan Asahi?
By the mere 90,000-circulation Newsweek Japan?
No.
First of all—no one would dispute that it is television, watched by the entire nation—over 120 million.
And anyone with a modicum of savvy knows that what shapes the TV commentators’ “editorials”—indeed, is taken over wholesale—are the newspaper editorials.
They are the ones who conduct opinion polls—
If they are wrong, everyone is wrong.
And yet, what have the networks done for these twenty-odd years?
Among those who now cry, “There, you see—we told you so!” there are people who—
Not as insiders but as outsiders—
Did Japan’s commercial networks—NHK too, which has aped the commercial networks by increasing “wide shows”—
Did they steadily pick up those voices to shape public opinion?
They did not.
Instead, they have run, twenty-four hours a day, an on-parade of what are essentially comedy shows.
Unless we indict this, Japan will truly die—
That is what I have been saying all along.
What they have been killing—Japan’s decency—has now been pointed out to the world by the Tōhoku people I love forever, from children to the elderly.
If, as in these past twenty-odd years, you remain trapped in malignant commercialism—
Or you yield to, or follow, the arrogance of the power of the day—
And keep making programs as before—
Then you are no longer journalists at all.
You have no right to monopolize the public airwaves to broadcast.
You must choose to disband yourselves—or something else.
That, I believe, is the only way to repay and memorialize the unprecedented victims and the survivors.
If you continue to obstruct human progress and the advance of wisdom, you have no right to be there—
And spare us your sanctimonious sermons—save them for when you reach hell.
To go on drawing the highest salaries in Japan is outrageous.
Why?
Because your role is to be journalism of the very highest order, and only by fulfilling that role should you receive the highest pay.
Conversely, it is now undeniable fact that these twenty-plus years have stupefied the people and led the nation astray.
I believe you did not even truly deserve wages as workers.

About a month ago I watched on NHK a meeting to hear the opinions of “viewer representatives” on programming.
A so-called viewer representative—likely some notable or a proper housewife of a proper home—
Offered a seemingly reasonable opinion about “balanced programming across social strata.”
The instant I heard it, I clicked my tongue and thought: if you keep up this sanctimony, nothing will change.
There is nowhere such a thing as facts or truths “balanced across social strata,” and in nature least of all—
This disaster has taught us that.
In terms of nature, nature—the Earth’s true face—is severe.
Please read my paper on this in the newsletter.

On Ogata Korin, of whom Kuroda Seiki is said to have stated “Korin over Rembrandt.”
From Wikipedia.

Ogata Korin (1658–1716) was an Edo-period painter and artisan.
He founded what would later be called the Rinpa school, known for its large decorative panels, and is one of the representative painters of mid-Edo.
Serving chiefly the wealthy townspeople of Kyoto, he studied courtly classics and left works of clarity and decoration.
His extraordinary sense of design birthed the term “Korin patterns,” and the influence on Japanese painting, crafts, and design continues to this day.
While grounded in Yamato-e, his late period includes works in ink painting.
Alongside large folding screens, he produced small works such as sachets, fan leaves, and uchiwa, and also hand-painted kosode and maki-e lacquer.
He even painted on ceramics made by his younger brother Ogata Kenzan—his practice was wide-ranging.

Korin’s background (also from Wikipedia).

Born the second son of Ogata Sōken, head of the Kyoto drapers “Kariganeya.”
When Korin was thirty, his father died and Korin’s elder brother inherited.
At the time the business was failing, and the naturally pleasure-loving Korin squandered the inherited fortune like water, even borrowing from his younger brother Kenzan.
Entering his forties, one reason he devoted himself to painting was this financial distress.
His style ranges from large decorative screens to ink paintings, yet all are filled with urban sensibility and design.
He displayed his talents broadly, from ceramics painted in collaboration with Kenzan to hand-painted kosode and lacquer design.

The family’s ancestor, Ichishun, is said to have been a senior samurai serving Ashikaga Yoshiaki, but details are unclear.
Ichishun’s son Ogata Dōhaku (Korin’s great-grandfather) began the dyeing business.
Dōhaku’s wife was the sister of Hon’ami Kōetsu, making Kōetsu and Korin distant in-laws.
Dōhaku’s son Sōhaku was a man of taste skilled in Kōetsu-style calligraphy.
Kariganeya counted Hideyoshi’s widow Kōdai-in, Yodo-dono, Tokugawa Ieyasu, Tokugawa Hidetada and his wife among its patrons and later served Tōfukumon’in;
Sōhaku’s youngest, who succeeded Kariganeya, was Sōken, father of Korin and Kenzan.
Sōken, too, was multitalented, skilled in Kōetsu-style calligraphy and painting.
Korin was born in 1658 as Sōken’s second son; his childhood name was Koretomi, common name Ichinoshō.
His brother Gompei later became the artist and potter Kenzan.
Born to a leading draper at the cutting edge of fashion, Korin from youth was familiar with Noh, tea, and calligraphy, which greatly influenced his later style.
He is said to have studied under Yamamoto Soken in the Kano lineage, though the dates are unclear.
Kariganeya’s decline accelerated after the death of Tōfukumon’in (1678), a client ordering over 5,000 ryō annually, and bad debts from loans to daimyō with rice as collateral.
In 1687 Sōken died and Korin’s elder brother succeeded; reduced income from business hardship was a major reason Korin turned to painting to make up the shortfall.
In his early thirties he changed his name to Kōrin; the first attested appearance of “Korin” is in 1692 when he was 35.
At 44 (1701) he received the rank of hokkyō (originally a Buddhist rank later given to painters and sculptors).
Few works have firm dates, but many bear the signature “Hokkyō Kōrin,” and thus his main period of serious painting is estimated as the dozen-plus years after receiving the rank until his death at 59.
His “Irises” folding screens are regarded as relatively early; though signed “Hokkyō Kōrin,” many believe the two characters hokkyō were added by another hand, making it pre-rank.
Korin had many patrons among courtiers, daimyō, and officials.
He often visited the residence of Nijō Tsunahira, head of one of the Five Regent Houses, whose recommendation likely helped secure his hokkyō rank.
He was also close to Nakamura Kurōsuke (1669–1730), a wealthy official at the Kyoto mint; Korin painted his portrait (now in the Yamato Bunkakan).
Korin took in Nakamura’s daughter and raised her for several years; she later married Korin’s son—
Their bond seems to have gone beyond mere patronage.
Taichirō Kobayashi, in “Korin and Kenzan” (Portraits of the World, vol. 7, Kadokawa), even asserts, “There is no doubt whatsoever that Kurōsuke was Korin’s lover.”