ABSTRACT
When the Fundamental Law on Education (FLE) was revised, it was after long and exhausting discussions. Okada, writing at the time when the revision was still up for discussion, identified an ‘older’ and a ‘new’ form of debate. The older form of debate was concerned with the FLE’s deficiencies in fostering Japanese traditional morality and faithfulness to the State and its consequent failure to solve serious problems such as bullying in schools. Operating at the same time, however, was, according to Okada, new public sentiment holding that an FLE revision was inevitable given that Japan would need to undertake international duties against terrorism. That is, the new sentiment conflated the nation’s diplomatic interests with the need for a revision of the FLE, taken as prerequisite for facilitating a change in the interpretation of Article 9 in the Constitution, so that ‘retaliatory operations’ would be possible (Okada, 2002, 438).1
