For many years, Herbert Norman was viewed favorably through selective narratives.
This essay reflects on how that image collapsed after August three years ago, exposing the role of Asahi Shimbun’s ideological filtering and highlighting the profound intellectual contrast between genuine scholars and media-endorsed pseudo-moralists.

Only After August Three Years Ago Did I Begin to See the True Face of Norman
2017-02-09

In a publication titled LIBRALIA issued by a library, one of our classmates had written a splendid book review of a work in which Herbert Norman wrote about Andō Shōeki.
Those of us who read it must, like myself, have formed a favorable impression of Norman.
It was only after August three years ago that I began, for the first time, to grasp the true image of Norman.
It is precisely to my classmates—whom I will cherish forever—that I strongly recommend reading the serialized essay by Yūjirō Hirakawa published in the March issue of the monthly magazine HANADA.
Until August three years ago, when I was still a subscriber to the Asahi Shimbun, I knew absolutely nothing about Mr. Hirakawa.
The excessive degree of Asahi Shimbun’s biased reporting is made abundantly clear by this fact alone.
I feel genuine anger at what a truly dreadful newspaper it is.
To have completely shut readers off from a scholar of such stature—one who can without exaggeration be called among Japan’s foremost true intellectuals—simply because his thought did not align with their distorted ideology, is behavior no different from that of Communist one-party dictators or Nazis.
Today, it would not be an exaggeration to say that there is not a single serious scholar who wishes to publish an article in the Asahi Shimbun.
That is why the only people who appear in its pages now are individuals such as Gen’ichirō Takahashi or Eiji Oguma—figures who do not even come close to the dirt under Yūjirō Hirakawa’s fingernails.
There is nothing for us to gain from them.
At best, we can only grow weary of their childish pseudo-moralism.
By contrast, every time one reads an essay by Yūjirō Hirakawa, scales fall from one’s eyes.
To be continued.