When Emperor Hirohi to announced over the radio Japan's surrender in World War II, Tomiichi Murayama, Japan's current Prime Minister, was a 21-year-old soldier on the southern island of Kyushu. At that time, he would have fought to the death for the Emperor. But when Murayama, the son of a simple fisherman, attended university after the war, his view of traditional authority changed. He read Marx and became a socialist. He joined a club devoted to the study of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who put him on guard against the foolish consistencies that are the hobgoblins of little minds. Last week the...
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