Post-truth and bullying in Japan: A challenging public responsibility
Post-truth and bullying in Japan: A challenging public responsibility

Summary/Abstract: The present paper aims at proving the expansion of the public conscience of thepost–truth era to Japan, by proving the fact that there are still some publicauthorities that deny their public responsibility for the mistakes they make bycoming up with ‘alternative facts’. As secondary issues the present study alsointroduces the main stages of the evolution of the concept of post-truth aroundthe Western (U.S. and UK) and Eastern (Russia) worlds, ending it by presentinga case of troublesome cultural heritage of the Post War Japanese society: ijime(‘bullying’). This phenomenon generated a public debate in Japan in the 1980s,yet there are still many cases of public denial of ijime manifestations, as well asof assuming responsibility for failing to solve these conflicts. A moral issuewhich the present paper raises consists in underlying the opposition between theJapanese macroeconomic success and international assessment of educationalexcellence on one hand and the crushing reality which makes someschoolchildren in Japan feel extremely unhappy – to the point of suicide, on theother hand. The question raised by such a reality may prompt some of us toconsider any Japanese over-optimistic public discourse as displaying the generalconscience of the post-truth era.

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