This is a political thread, because the introduction of a Japanese alphabet makes it so. Because the Japanese have never used an alphabet, introducing such a thing makes it political due to an alphabet's overall efficiency, which efficiency translates to political economy, an economy that begins in elementary school: Japanese children are forming consonants long before they enter any school, though they have never seen graphic representations of these consonants standing on their own, they are always hidden by the syllabary. If Japanese children were shown an alphabet of 26 letters with which to learn to write their language, it would be impossible not to call it political if and when it was begun to be used in their society.
We invite arguments that rebut the politics of reading and writing systems.
We invite arguments that rebut the politics of reading and writing systems.