ペーパードライブ【読書・哲学】currently outside the Japan top 100
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This episode is a book club discussion of philosopher Nagai Rei's (永井玲) new book — a collection of essays serialized in the literary magazine Gunzo (群像) from July 2024 to July 2026. The three hosts reflect on the shock of visiting Okinawan gama, how the phrase "let us be grateful for peace" shuts down inquiry into war, the deception embedded in the word "sacrifice," and the shrinking of peace education.
What this episode answers
What kind of book is Nagai Rei's new work, and why does the obi describe it as a 'documentary'?
It collects essays serialized in Gunzo from July 2024 to July 2026, co-created with photographer Yagisaki; rather than maintaining a single first-person camera, the work distributes its perspective across multiple figures — which is why 'documentary' appears on the obi — a word Oshima only noticed after she had already closed the book.
What did Nagai come to question through her experience of visiting the gama in Okinawa?
She was struck by a sign at the forced mass death site reading 'People live here. Please be quiet,' and came to the conviction that any serious engagement with war must start from the irreducible fact that Okinawa is an island where people live, not a case study or a resort destination.
Why does the phrase 'let us be grateful for peace' obstruct thinking about war?
The moment one settles into the answer 'be grateful,' one releases the discomfort and the necessity of suffering; answering the question halts thought and creates the conditions for sliding into narratives that justify history — such as 'noble sacrifice' arguments or support for increased defense spending.
What is the problem with the word 'sacrifice'?
'Sacrifice' carries the connotation of something given in exchange for something else, but deaths in war are deaths that should never have happened and were not offered on behalf of anyone; calling them sacrifices seals off the question of who bears responsibility for causing those deaths.
What difficulties does peace education currently face, and what can adults do?
Political interference — including the removal of descriptions of forced mass death from textbooks — continues, and peace education has grown timid under accusations of political bias; but Nagai says that even as adults, people can visit the places, engage in dialogue, and keep holding the question.
Nagai Rei's New Book — Structure as Expression
Nagai Rei's (永井玲) new book collects essays serialized in the literary magazine Gunzo (群像) from July 2024 to July 2026. Created in collaboration with photographer Yagisaki (八木崎), the book gathers his photographs together immediately before the final chapter, "Living," rather than scattering them as illustrations throughout the text. Different paper stock creates a visual distinction, and Oshima (大島) described the layout as "like a cross-section of a macaron."
The cover shows a glass marble suspended by Yagisaki — an image suggesting a hole opening in everyday life, evoking the ruptures of war and missile imagery, "a frightening hole" — while the back cover gives the same motif an entirely opposite meaning. After finishing the book, Oshima noticed for the first time the word "documentary" on the obi and said it stopped her cold. Rather than maintaining a consistent first-person perspective, the work distributes its point of view across multiple figures — this is what makes it "documentary," and simultaneously what marks it as a deliberate literary structural achievement.
"Please Be Quiet — People Live Here"
During her research, Nagai visited gama (natural caves) in Okinawa — sites of forced mass death compelled by the Imperial Japanese Army. Tucked behind apartment blocks, one site bears a sign reading: "People live here. Please be quiet." Nagai felt the dissonance between well-meaning visitors arriving loudly from the mainland and the reality that Okinawa is treated by the mainland only as a resort destination or a case study in the base problem. Her conviction: the starting point must be the irreducible fact that people live here.
Page 70 quotes the photo book Ningen no Sunde Iru Shima (人間の住んでいる島): "Okinawa was, is, and will be an island where people live." Some gama remain closed because those who died there lie in the ground and do not want to be walked on. Inside one gama she was permitted to enter (page 72), Nagai pressed her hand against the earth and heard herself think, "There are no dead here" — and was immediately struck by the strangeness of the thought itself. She writes this as a moment of slowing, "kapori, kapori."
A Question Must Not Be Answered
Nishikawa (西川) has spent years watching veteran radio personalities lose their words during annual broadcasts on the war's-end and atomic bombing anniversaries. He found the reason in this book. Page 115: "It is the listener who is being tested" — the weight falls not on how the speaker tells but on those who receive the words. When actor Takarada Akira (宝田明) appeared as a guest and spoke about his wartime experience — not by the production team's design but spontaneously, in the natural flow of the conversation — it reached listeners through the airwaves, and the experience crystallized for Nishikawa into an answer: listening.
Page 135 states: "A question is an act of resistance." Phrases like "it was a noble sacrifice" or "today's peace is thanks to you" look like answers, but they release us from discomfort and the necessity of suffering. Oshima described how "let us be grateful for peace" education, absorbed since elementary school, has quietly instilled a distorted logic: gratitude → gratitude toward those who fought → support for increased defense spending.
What the Word "Sacrifice" Suppresses
Oshima spoke about a long-standing unease with the word "sacrifice" (犠牲, gisei). In its original meaning, sacrifice is an offering given in exchange for something else. But deaths in war — like deaths in traffic accidents — are deaths that should never have happened; they were not tendered on behalf of anyone. Framing a death as "a sacrifice in exchange for peace" seals off the question of who bears responsibility for causing it. The passive construction "the atomic bomb fell" (原爆が落ちました) works the same way: it was the United States that dropped it, and the context of Hiroshima as a military city disappears. The three hosts agreed: the unconscious accumulation of such usages quietly distorts historical understanding.
The Withering of Peace Education, and What Can Still Be Done
Political interference in peace education continues — including the removal of descriptions of forced mass death from textbooks. Under the accusation of "political bias," teachers have grown cautious, and adults who have finished their formal education find themselves unable to restart their questioning without any grounding. A vicious cycle.
Yet Nagai repeats: "It can be done even after you become an adult." Visit the places. Have conversations. Keep holding the question. The afterword reads: "This series is trying to say something and not quite managing it; the words are in a hurry and drowning in the shallows" — and it is precisely this honesty, in offering unanswered questions as they stand, that defines the book's stance.
Takeaways
- Answering 'be grateful for peace' shuts down thought and leaves the causes of war unexamined — maintaining the question, not resolving it, is the act of resistance.
- The word 'sacrifice' reframes death as an exchange and suppresses the question of culpability, just as the passive 'the bomb fell' erases agency — unconscious word choices quietly distort historical understanding.
- Peace education is withering under political interference, but Nagai insists that visiting sites, holding dialogue, and sustaining questions are things adults can still do.
This article is edited from a machine transcript of the first 30 minutes of the episode. It is not an official summary — please listen to the episode itself.