This article examines the shocking remarks made by Asada Akira in Bungakkai (1989), in which he mocked Japanese citizens praying for the Emperor as “savages.” It highlights the disturbing fact that Ōe Kenzaburō later praised Asada and Karatani as “Japan’s two genius cultural heroes,” a form of praise resembling North Korean or CCP propaganda. The piece cites analysis by Ushio Masato and sharp criticism by Yazawa Nagakazu, revealing how postwar intellectuals demeaned their own people while living on taxpayer money. Essential reading for understanding Japan’s distorted postwar intellectual climate.

The phrase “Japan’s two genius cultural heroes” is indistinguishable from the praises used by North Korea or the Chinese Communist Party

The location of the original statement was the flagship literary magazine of Bungeishunjū, Bungakkai (February 1989 issue), in a “Special Dialogue No.1.”

November 28, 2016

The January issue of the monthly magazine HANADA (840 yen) is filled with articles that people must immediately go to bookstores to purchase.

Above all, those who have been reading the Asahi Shimbun and watching television programs produced by its subsidiaries must absolutely read this magazine.

Because articles like the one below will never be published in Asahi or broadcast on their TV stations.

Bold text outside the headline and the ＊〜＊ markers are mine.

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“The Media and Intellectuals Flocking Like ‘Savages’”

Critic, Takushoku University Visiting Professor — Ushio Masato

“I shuddered to think what a country of ‘savages’ I was living in”—
So sneered and ridiculed Asada Akira, then an associate professor at Kyoto University, referring to compatriots praying for the recovery of the Emperor in 1988.

The statement appeared in Bungakkai (February 1989 issue), the leading literary journal of Bungeishunjū, in a feature dialogue titled “Examining the Intellectual History of the Showa Era.”
His dialogue partner was Karatani Kōjin (literary critic).

Following the lead sentence, “Intellectuals could not confront the ‘biological’ existence of the Emperor,” Asada opened with the following remarks:

“To tell the truth, I have absolutely no desire to talk about the Showa era. Since last September, I’ve been shown on the news every day groups of people bowing deeply before the Imperial Palace, and I can’t help but shudder, wondering what kind of country of ‘savages’ I’m living in.
And even if I force myself to think about it, I can’t consider it objectively, because I keep remembering something you wrote earlier in Kai’en (laugh).”

As you can see, it was a condescending mockery of ordinary Japanese citizens made by so-called “intellectuals.”

Asada closed the first installment of the “Special Dialogue” with another reckless statement:

“Well, as a republican, I suppose I’ll watch the fuss over imperial succession with cool detachment, waiting for them to slip up somewhere.”

An extremely disrespectful and arrogant conversation.

Yet it was these two individuals, Asada and Karatani, whom Ōe Kenzaburō praised in 1992, during a lecture at the University of Chicago titled “New Cultural Relations Between Japan and the United States,” as “Japan’s two genius cultural heroes.”

＊One cannot help thinking that calling them “Japan’s two genius cultural heroes” sounds exactly like the flattery found in North Korea or the Chinese Communist Party.＊

Ōe refused Japan’s Order of Culture on the grounds that “as a postwar democrat, a state-linked cultural decoration does not suit me” (Asahi Shimbun, Tensei Jingo, October 17, 1994), yet eagerly accepted the Nobel Prize.
This process is detailed in Yazawa Nagakazu’s Who Made Japan This Way?—A Letter of Accusation Against Ōe Kenzaburō, Representative of Postwar Democracy (Kuresuto-sha).

Yazawa sharply criticized:

“Japanese cultural figures have not been shy about insulting their own people.
But Asada is the first in history to call them ‘savages.’
Of course, I respect freedom of speech. If a man truly believes such things, he may say them.
However, if that is the case, then he should stop living on the salary paid by Kyoto University—funded by taxes offered by these very ‘savages.’
The money collected from the sweat of these ‘vile and foolish savages’ is what runs Kyoto University.
Asada is an associate professor at its Economic Research Institute.
Surely his five vital organs would rot and kill him if he ate food purchased with the filthy money of ‘savages.’
If he wishes to live long, he should immediately resign from Kyoto University and stand on his own two feet—living without relying on the ‘savages’ for anything.”

—The article continues.