新聞記者が愛用する「日本人は水と安全はタダだと思っている」というジャーゴン

以前、『天声男語』という記事を投稿して、朝日新聞の天声人語を批判した。
１０月２５日の天声人語（タイトル写真および以下の文章もここから引用）について、続編を書く。
朝日新聞のウェブサイトでは、『水道の老朽化』という題がつけられている。その後半部分を引用する。

▼最近どきりとしたのは、和歌山市の川にかかる水管橋が崩落した図である。断水は６万世帯に及び、ほぼ１週間続いた。
たった一つの水の橋に多くの人の生活がかかっている
▼哲学者の和辻哲郎は『風土』で、古代ローマが大都市を築けたのは水の制約を打ち破ったためだと書いた。
それに先立つ古代ギリシャは制約を破ろうとせず、都市が大きくならなかった。人口の増加と水道の発展が歩調を合わせてきたのが文明の歴史である
▼人口が減っても水道が命綱であるのは変わらない。かつては「日本人は水と安全はタダだと思っている」と言われた。
しかし今は水を使い続けるために、費用を捻（ひね）り出すことが急務となっている。

長い天声人語の歴史で、このような趣旨の文章は何回も目にしている。
水道の代わりに、道路とかトンネルとか建物とか何かのシステムとか、題材は変わるが、最後に、「何とかしないといけない」で終わるパターンの繰り返しである。
このコラムの結論を一言で言うと、春や秋の交通安全スローガンになる。

今回問題だと思うのは、引用のことである。

文中に、「哲学者の和辻哲郎は『風土』で、古代ローマが大都市を築けたのは水の制約を打ち破ったためだと書いた。」とある。
また、「かつては「日本人は水と安全はタダだと思っている」と言われた」と書かれている。

前者の発言者は実名で、しかも「哲学者」という肩書までつけてある。後者は出典を明記していない。しかし実際は、「日本人は水と安全はタダだと思っている」というフレーズは、イザヤ・ベンダサンという人が１９７０年に出した、『日本人とユダヤ人』という本に載っている言葉である。

この本は、単行本とか文庫とか新書とかの形で、５０年間ずっと売られている。私は、図書館から、２００４年に発行された、角川新書版の、『日本人とユダヤ人』という本を借りてきた。この本で初めに「日本人は水と安全はタダだと思っている」フレーズが登場する文章は、こうであった。

駐日イスラエル大使館がまだ公使館であったころ、日本人に親しまれたある書記官がつくづくとこういった。「日本人は水と安全はタダだと思いこんでいる」と。

「日本人は水と安全はタダだと思っている」というフレーズは、『日本人とユダヤ人』という本において、まず他人の発言として紹介されているのだった。

この本の初版が発行されたのは１９７０年である。そのころの時代背景を知らないと理解できない言説が多い。それをこらえて読み進めると、こんな文章が出てくる。

ああ、日本人はなんと幸福な民族であったことだろう。自己の安全に、収入の大部分をさかねばならなかった民と、安全と水は無料で手に入ると信じ切れる状態に置かれた民と、私は、ただため息が出てくるだけである。だが、あまりに恵まれるということは、日本人がよく言うように「過ぎたるは及ばざるが如し」で、時にはかえって不幸を招く。深窓に育った令嬢や、過保護の青少年は、何かちょっとしたことに出会うと、すぐに思いつめてしまう。大学受験に失敗して自殺したなどはその典型的な一例であろうし、いわゆる一家心中も、多くはこの部類に入る。

このへんてこな文章の中にある、最初の民はユダヤ人を、二つ目の民は日本人を指す。「日本人は水と安全はタダだと思っている」フレーズは伝聞だったのに、いつの間にか著者の主張になっている。彼はこのフレーズに魅了されたのだろうか。

そして肝心なことは、「日本人は水と安全はタダだと思っている」というフレーズを元にして、色々な事象を説明していくが、元のフレーズ自体の根拠は、最初の伝聞以外何もない、ということである。

もし、「日本人は水と安全はタダだと思っている」というフレーズを、「日本人の主食は米である」とか「日本人の性格は血液型で決まる」とかに代えても、この著者なら色々な事象の理由として、こじつけられるだろう。

それにしてもこんな詠嘆調で、裏付けもなく、支離滅裂なことを書いた本がいまだに売られているのはなぜだろうか。本の内容以上に不思議で仕方がない。

この角川新書版の、『日本人とユダヤ人』という本の初めの部分に、編集部の注としてこう書かれている。

当時、著者の山本七平は「イザヤ・ベンダサン」名義で執筆、刊行しました。

つまり、日本の人が、ユダヤ人のようなペンネームで書いた本である。しかし出版当時は、そういうことは公にしていなかった。あたかも本当のユダヤ人が、日本人を揶揄しているように見せかけた文章である。

そんな本で登場した、このフレーズは新聞業界では人気があって、毎年数回、誰かの文章に使われる。だが、そのような引用者は、この本を読んだことがあるのだろうか。それに、昔も今も、水も安全も無料ではないことは、誰でも少し考えれば、わかることである。彼らは、昔の人たちは愚かだった、と思っているのだろうか。

下の記事によると、東京都内の毎月の水道代は、単身者で平均２１７２円、４人世帯で６２９８円かかっている。１９７０年当時も無料だったわけではない。

Looopでんき

また、今も昔もおまわりさんが無給で働いているわけではない。

私の推測だが、このフレーズを使う人は、水道代の支払いを気にしないで済むような階層の人たちなのだろう。
また、このフレーズは、「ガラパゴス化」とか「ゆでガエル」とか、最近では「ＰＰＡＰ」（電子メール添付ファイルの暗号化手法への揶揄。この言葉はすぐ消えるかもしれない）と同様に、中年男性の好きな言葉（ジャーゴン）だと思う。
（ジャーゴンとは、コトバンクによれば、「仲間うちにだけ通じる特殊用語。 専門用語。 職業用語。 転じて、わけのわからない、ちんぷんかんぷんな言葉。」）

根拠のないフレーズを、一面のコラムで引用することはやめるべきである。
正確には、天声人語のこの書き方は引用ではない。ただの伝聞である。
ジャーナリストであれば、このフレーズは有名なので、出典を知らない方がおかしい。もし出典を知っていたとして、書かないのは不誠実である。

哲学者の和辻哲郎の『風土』を先に書くことで、後のフレーズの出典を書かなくて済むように心理的に誘導したのではないか、とさえ思う。
すでに和辻哲郎を知る人は減ったと思う（哲学者という表現はいわゆる権威付けであろう）が、イザヤ・ベンダサンという人物を知る人はより少ないだろうし、今では日本人のペンネームであることがばれているので、わざと隠したのかもしれない。
「言われた」とか「言われる」というのは、ずるい表現技法である。

もうこれ以上、この根拠のないフレーズを伝承してほしくない。
また別の誰かが、考えもなく使うだろうから。

Newspaper reporter's favorite jargon: "Japanese people think that water and safety are free".

I previously posted an article titled "Tensei Dango (A voice from heaven makes a man speak.)" in which I criticized the Asahi Shimbun's tensei jingo.
This is a sequel to the October 25 Tensei Jingo (the title photo and the following text are also taken from here).
On the Asahi Shimbun website, it is titled "Aging Water Supply". The second half of the article is quoted below .

This reminded me acutely of the extent to which the daily lives of many people can depend on just one bridge. Philosopher Tetsuro Watsuji (1889-1960) wrote in his seminal work “Fudo” that having the ability to provide running water was what enabled the Roman empire to build metropolises, whereas ancient Greece, which existed long before Rome came into being, did not attempt this feat and its cities remained smaller in scale. The history of civilization progressed in step with population growth and the development of water services. But depopulation will not change the fact that water supply will always remain a lifeline. It was said in the past that “the Japanese people think water and safety are free.”  But today, scraping together funds has become an urgent task if we are to keep using water.

Philosopher Tetsuro Watsuji (1889-1960) wrote in his seminal work “Fudo” that having the ability to provide running water was what enabled the Roman empire to build metropolises, whereas ancient Greece, which existed long before Rome came into being, did not attempt this feat and its cities remained smaller in scale.

The history of civilization progressed in step with population growth and the development of water services.

But depopulation will not change the fact that water supply will always remain a lifeline.

It was said in the past that “the Japanese people think water and safety are free.”

But today, scraping together funds has become an urgent task if we are to keep using water.

Philosopher Tetsuro Watsuji (1889-1960) wrote in his seminal work “Fudo” that having the ability to provide running water was what enabled the Roman empire to build metropolises, whereas ancient Greece, which existed long before Rome came into being, did not attempt this feat and its cities remained smaller in scale.

The history of civilization progressed in step with population growth and the development of water services.

But depopulation will not change the fact that water supply will always remain a lifeline.

It was said in the past that “the Japanese people think water and safety are free.”

But today, scraping together funds has become an urgent task if we are to keep using water.

This reminded me acutely of the extent to which the daily lives of many people can depend on just one bridge.

Philosopher Tetsuro Watsuji (1889-1960) wrote in his seminal work “Fudo” that having the ability to provide running water was what enabled the Roman empire to build metropolises, whereas ancient Greece, which existed long before Rome came into being, did not attempt this feat and its cities remained smaller in scale.

The history of civilization progressed in step with population growth and the development of water services.

But depopulation will not change the fact that water supply will always remain a lifeline.

It was said in the past that “the Japanese people think water and safety are free.”

But today, scraping together funds has become an urgent task if we are to keep using water.

In the long history of Tenshojingo, I have seen sentences with this kind of purpose many times.
Instead of water supply, the subject changes to roads, tunnels, buildings, or some other system, but the pattern repeats itself, ending with, "We have to do something.
The conclusion of this column can be summed up in one word: traffic safety slogans for spring and autumn.

What I think is problematic this time is the quote.

In the text, "The philosopher Watsuji Tetsuro wrote in his book "Fudoki" that ancient Rome was able to build a great city because it broke through the constraints of water."
It also says, "In the past, it was said that "Japanese people think that water and safety are free".

The former speaker is his real name and even has the title of "philosopher". The latter does not specify the source. However, in reality, the phrase "Japanese people think that water and safety are free" is a word in the book "Japanese and Jews" published by a person named Isaiah Bendasan in 1970. 

This book has been sold for 50 years in the form of books, and paperbacks.  I borrowed from the library the book "Japanese and Jews", a paperback edition  published in 2004. The first sentence in this book that the phrase "Japanese think water and safety are free" was:

When the Embassy of Israel in Japan was still a legation, a clerk familiar with Japanese people came up with this. "Japanese people think that water and safety are free."

The phrase "Japanese people think that water and safety are free" was first introduced as hearsay in the book "The Japanese and the Jews".

The first edition of this book was published in 1970. If you don't know the historical background of that time, you may not understand many of the statements. As I struggled through the book, I came across the following sentence.

Oh, what a happy people the Japanese must have been. A people who had to devote a large part of their income to their own safety, and a people who could believe that safety and water were available for free, I can only sigh. However, being blessed with too much can sometimes lead to misfortune, as the Japanese often say, "Too much can be as bad as too little. A young lady who was brought up with tenderest care in a good family, or an sheltered youth, can easily become overwhelmed when they encounter little things. Suicide after failing a college entrance exam is a typical example of this, and so-called family suicides often fall into this category.

In this odd sentence, the first people refer to the Jews and the second people refer to the Japanese. The phrase "Japanese people think that water and safety are free" was what the author heard, but somehow, in the book, it became his argument. I wonder if he was fascinated by the phrase.

And the important thing is that he explains various events based on the phrase "Japanese people think that water and safety are free," but the original phrase itself has no basis other than the initial hearsay.

If the phrase "Japanese people think that water and safety are free" is replaced with "Japanese people's staple food is rice" or "Japanese people's personalities are determined by their blood types," the author would be able to explain various events in a convincing manner.

But why is it that books with such a lyrical tone and incoherent statements are still being sold? I can't help but wonder more than the content of the book.

At the beginning of the book, "The Japanese and the Jews," a Kadokawa Shinsho edition, there is an editor's note that reads as follows

At the time of publication, the author, Shichihei Yamamoto, wrote and published the book under the name "Isaiah Bendasan.

In other words, it is a book written by a Japanese person under a pen name that sounds Jewish. However, at the time of publication, this was not made public. It was written as if a real Jew was making fun of the Japanese people.

This phrase, which appeared in such a book, is popular in the newspaper industry and is used in someone's writing several times every year. But I wonder if such quoters have ever read the book. Besides, anyone who thinks about it for a moment knows that water and safety were not free in the past, nor are they now. Do they think that the people of the past were stupid?

According to the article below, the monthly water bill in Tokyo costs an average of 2172 yen for a single person and 6298 yen for a household of four.　Even before 1970, water bills were not free.

Looopでんき

Also, it is not as if the policemen are working without pay now and then.

My guess is that the people who use this phrase are from a class of people who don't have to worry about paying their water bills.
I think it is a favorite word (jargon) of middle-aged men, just like "Galapagosization," "boiling frogs," and more recently, "PPAP" (a derogatory term for the encryption method of e-mail attachments, which may soon disappear).
(Jargon is, according to Kotobank, "a special term that can only be understood by friends. A technical term. A professional term. In turn, a sloppy word that majority don't understand.")

Reporters should stop quoting unsubstantiated phrases in their front page columns.

To be precise, this way of writing in Tenshojingo is not a quote. It is just hearsay.
If you are a journalist, this phrase is so well known that it would be strange not to know the source. If you knew the source, it would be dishonest not to write about it.

I even think that by writing the philosopher Tetsuro Watsuji's "Fudoki" first, he may have psychologically induced his readers so that he would not have to write the source of the later phrase.
The number of people who know about Watsuji Tetsuro has already decreased (the expression "philosopher" is probably a so-called authoritative one), but the number of people who know about Isaiah Bendasan is probably even smaller, and since it is now known that he is a Japanese pen name, he may have deliberately hidden it.
The words "being said" and "allegedly" are a sly technique of expression.

I don't want it to be handed down any longer, because someone else will use it again without thinking.