Tensei Jingo acknowledges the virtue of child-rearing practices, yet rejects them outright once they are framed as national policy. This reveals an ideology that treats the state itself as inherently malicious.

2016-04-10

The current “Tensei Jingo” is probably the worst written among the major Tokyo newspapers, and on top of that, it exudes a peculiar stench.
One can hold one’s nose and read the smelly parts, but first it introduces the claim by the author of The River Without Bridges that he disliked the term “child-rearing” because it carries an awareness connected to managing children.
Both “child” and “to raise” are native Japanese words.
For Japanese readers, it is difficult to understand the argument that words they naturally comprehend should contain nuances better explained by the Sino-Japanese term “management,” but let that pass.
The Education Rebuilding Council proposed that child-rearing should include singing lullabies, breastfeeding, not turning on the television during meals, establishing early bedtime, early rising, eating breakfast, and not telling lies.
Tensei Jingo nods along, saying “it is a good story,” yet completely rejects it by declaring, “that is a different matter if it becomes a national proposal.”
The reason given is that it would amount to imposing values and demanding that parents become subcontractors of the state.
In other words, the state is portrayed as an outrageous evil, whose every statement conceals malicious intent, aiming to deceive its citizens, enslave them, and lead them to ruin.
That description would better fit the Chinese Communist regime, which carried out Yan’an Rectification to deceive the people, forced citizens to kill one another during the Cultural Revolution, invaded Tibet, and launched war against Vietnam, yet this newspaper treats that regime as a “respectable country.”