1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:04,600 Speaker 1: Quick disclaimer before we enter part two of our exploration 2 00:00:04,680 --> 00:00:10,719 Speaker 1: of the bizarre final years of Mishima. This episode contains, 3 00:00:11,280 --> 00:00:14,760 Speaker 1: at times, uh no, how would we say it, pretty 4 00:00:15,040 --> 00:00:21,159 Speaker 1: graphic depictions of some some adult mature things. Yeah, I 5 00:00:21,160 --> 00:00:24,279 Speaker 1: would say that, and also discussions of suicide of the 6 00:00:24,440 --> 00:00:28,760 Speaker 1: ritualistic variety. And so if you were to ask me, 7 00:00:29,240 --> 00:00:31,960 Speaker 1: if you were to say, Ben, is this appropriate for 8 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:35,879 Speaker 1: all listeners, then I would say it's something to have 9 00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:39,320 Speaker 1: a headsop about. But we hope you enjoyed part one 10 00:00:39,440 --> 00:00:43,639 Speaker 1: of this series as much as we did, so we 11 00:00:43,720 --> 00:00:47,159 Speaker 1: wanted to give you a quick disclaimer. Uh, this may 12 00:00:47,200 --> 00:00:51,000 Speaker 1: not be one for everybody, but it is certainly a 13 00:00:51,120 --> 00:00:54,120 Speaker 1: story worth being told, and we want to thank again 14 00:00:54,320 --> 00:00:59,400 Speaker 1: our excellent research associate Zach Williams. It is first ever 15 00:01:00,080 --> 00:01:04,440 Speaker 1: on air appearance. Technically is second. I would say, that's right. 16 00:01:04,880 --> 00:01:08,600 Speaker 1: Let's get right to it. Ridiculous History is a production 17 00:01:08,640 --> 00:01:36,120 Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Welcome back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. 18 00:01:36,120 --> 00:01:39,120 Speaker 1: Thank you, as always so much for tuning in. Well, 19 00:01:39,160 --> 00:01:42,399 Speaker 1: let's give it up for our own iconic last super producer, 20 00:01:42,600 --> 00:01:50,960 Speaker 1: Mr Max Williams. Here's an iconic class. They called me, 21 00:01:51,040 --> 00:01:54,680 Speaker 1: Ben Null. This is part two of a two part 22 00:01:54,760 --> 00:02:00,200 Speaker 1: series that we've both been uh incredibly excited about. I 23 00:02:00,240 --> 00:02:03,800 Speaker 1: guess we should tell people before you listen to part two, 24 00:02:04,400 --> 00:02:08,200 Speaker 1: check out our episode that came out this previous Tuesday. 25 00:02:08,720 --> 00:02:11,600 Speaker 1: There's gonna be a lot of context you'll need. And 26 00:02:11,720 --> 00:02:14,160 Speaker 1: uh and I think it's a it's a deep diving, 27 00:02:14,280 --> 00:02:17,639 Speaker 1: wide ranging conversation, thanks in no small part to our 28 00:02:17,800 --> 00:02:22,320 Speaker 1: returning special guests, Research Associate doctor Zach. One night over 29 00:02:22,400 --> 00:02:27,000 Speaker 1: sleep down, a doctor appeared. But this was no normal doctor. 30 00:02:27,480 --> 00:02:36,600 Speaker 1: Who's there? It's Zach Zach who the doctor named Zach 31 00:02:37,960 --> 00:02:42,400 Speaker 1: and he's here to fill your scraps justic knowledge. Pett 32 00:02:42,480 --> 00:02:49,960 Speaker 1: is cat me teaching history books a stop. Uh, let's 33 00:02:50,000 --> 00:03:00,680 Speaker 1: go with other things. Yeah, that'll work, Zack. That's right. 34 00:03:00,919 --> 00:03:06,639 Speaker 1: The nickname stuck. What can you do surgery? He refused 35 00:03:06,680 --> 00:03:09,520 Speaker 1: my title. Yeah, I mean not actual brain surgery, but 36 00:03:09,600 --> 00:03:13,640 Speaker 1: you know, brain adjacent surgery. Guess what conversation really is, 37 00:03:13,639 --> 00:03:16,800 Speaker 1: isn't it diminishing returns? Well, you know, I find that 38 00:03:16,880 --> 00:03:20,680 Speaker 1: the returns to be absolutely sufficient. Uh if if if 39 00:03:20,720 --> 00:03:23,280 Speaker 1: part one of this series is any indication, And just 40 00:03:23,280 --> 00:03:25,400 Speaker 1: just to give people a little bit of a backtrack, 41 00:03:25,480 --> 00:03:26,760 Speaker 1: you know, even if it's been a couple of days. 42 00:03:26,760 --> 00:03:29,560 Speaker 1: As you've listened, we're talking about the bizarre life and 43 00:03:29,680 --> 00:03:38,200 Speaker 1: times and final years of Yukio Mishima, icon of clastic writer, poet, musician, bodybuilder, uh, 44 00:03:38,400 --> 00:03:42,080 Speaker 1: Samurai enthusiasts who also kind of you know, came honestly 45 00:03:42,120 --> 00:03:44,800 Speaker 1: by that in his upbringing, which was in more of 46 00:03:44,800 --> 00:03:47,520 Speaker 1: the kind of not feudal Japan, but sort of the 47 00:03:47,520 --> 00:03:52,200 Speaker 1: tradition of that kind of world and that archetype. Right. Yeah, 48 00:03:52,240 --> 00:03:54,280 Speaker 1: I mean, like like we said, he's his face, he's 49 00:03:54,320 --> 00:03:57,520 Speaker 1: descended from vassals like samurai families and things like that. 50 00:03:57,800 --> 00:04:02,640 Speaker 1: Definitely has historical so stations, cultural cultural associations, and certainly 51 00:04:02,720 --> 00:04:06,120 Speaker 1: was associated with those things after his life by much 52 00:04:06,160 --> 00:04:09,720 Speaker 1: of the Western publishing world. But a very modern figure 53 00:04:09,880 --> 00:04:13,120 Speaker 1: for Japan, like very post war kind of like this 54 00:04:13,320 --> 00:04:18,159 Speaker 1: new futuristic Japan, and he sort of was simultaneously embraced 55 00:04:18,200 --> 00:04:22,120 Speaker 1: by Western audiences and sort of like like the brass 56 00:04:22,200 --> 00:04:24,240 Speaker 1: in Japan didn't quite know what to make of him, 57 00:04:24,279 --> 00:04:26,320 Speaker 1: you know. Um, And he really was this sort of 58 00:04:26,360 --> 00:04:30,400 Speaker 1: like writer as celebrity kind of figure, which is not 59 00:04:30,560 --> 00:04:34,200 Speaker 1: something we see nearly as much today. Um, maybe the 60 00:04:34,320 --> 00:04:38,480 Speaker 1: artist as celebrity like uh, Damien Hurst for example, or 61 00:04:38,520 --> 00:04:41,039 Speaker 1: Andy Warhol. But you don't really think of like these 62 00:04:41,120 --> 00:04:44,920 Speaker 1: big celebrity writers that have that same kind of you know, 63 00:04:45,040 --> 00:04:50,600 Speaker 1: cult of personality. But this guy was that thing well J. K. Rowley, Uh, 64 00:04:50,640 --> 00:04:54,000 Speaker 1: Stephen King arguably, but not I I see what you're saying. Well, 65 00:04:54,040 --> 00:04:57,599 Speaker 1: not perhaps to that degree. Still, Uh in the rallying case, 66 00:04:57,760 --> 00:05:02,240 Speaker 1: especially lots of controversy, right and uh when a political 67 00:05:02,279 --> 00:05:05,680 Speaker 1: direction that maybe she had no business or expertise to 68 00:05:05,839 --> 00:05:10,320 Speaker 1: go down. Yeah, So this is this is the thing 69 00:05:10,360 --> 00:05:16,080 Speaker 1: where where last we left Mishima world famous right in 70 00:05:16,360 --> 00:05:19,600 Speaker 1: a always the bridesmaid sort of situation, with the Nobel 71 00:05:19,680 --> 00:05:25,680 Speaker 1: Prize for literature intensely considered uh throughout uh the sixties, 72 00:05:25,800 --> 00:05:31,480 Speaker 1: I believe, and he has no compunction about airing his 73 00:05:32,480 --> 00:05:36,839 Speaker 1: opinions past the world of fiction, past the world of literature. 74 00:05:37,440 --> 00:05:40,520 Speaker 1: He starts talking a lot about nationalism, and the man 75 00:05:40,680 --> 00:05:43,040 Speaker 1: very much has a microphone. He is very much in 76 00:05:43,080 --> 00:05:48,279 Speaker 1: the zeitgeist, right, and so people are hearing his opinions, 77 00:05:48,320 --> 00:05:52,240 Speaker 1: his perspective. And one thing that surprised me about this 78 00:05:52,760 --> 00:05:58,120 Speaker 1: was at this time, while outsiders may associate him increasingly 79 00:05:58,600 --> 00:06:02,719 Speaker 1: with what we would call right wing political ideology. I 80 00:06:02,760 --> 00:06:06,039 Speaker 1: was not aware that the people who are actually the 81 00:06:06,080 --> 00:06:10,119 Speaker 1: movers and shakers of right wing Japanese politics, we're talking 82 00:06:10,240 --> 00:06:13,760 Speaker 1: very far right. I did not know that they didn't 83 00:06:13,960 --> 00:06:18,520 Speaker 1: all dig him. Uh. And it's the primary sticking point 84 00:06:18,520 --> 00:06:23,440 Speaker 1: I believe, is that he says Emperor Hirohito, who we 85 00:06:23,520 --> 00:06:27,880 Speaker 1: mentioned in Part one, should have admitted fault at the 86 00:06:27,960 --> 00:06:32,600 Speaker 1: very least for the atrocities committed by the Japanese imperial 87 00:06:32,640 --> 00:06:35,719 Speaker 1: forces in World War two? Was that really such a 88 00:06:35,760 --> 00:06:39,200 Speaker 1: sticking point for them's act? It wasn't just that he 89 00:06:39,279 --> 00:06:42,680 Speaker 1: was also sort of he was also very critical of 90 00:06:42,720 --> 00:06:47,440 Speaker 1: the emperor simultaneously sort of like in favor of the 91 00:06:47,480 --> 00:06:52,719 Speaker 1: emperor's cultural purpose and station in society, very critical of 92 00:06:52,720 --> 00:06:54,960 Speaker 1: the fact that the emperor abdicated the throne at the 93 00:06:55,000 --> 00:06:57,880 Speaker 1: end of the war and renounced his status as a 94 00:06:57,960 --> 00:07:00,919 Speaker 1: sort of like spiritual being. And then, in addition to that, 95 00:07:01,000 --> 00:07:04,360 Speaker 1: as you pointed out, the sort of denial of wartime atrocities, 96 00:07:04,440 --> 00:07:08,280 Speaker 1: which are numerous in Japan um as they they were 97 00:07:08,640 --> 00:07:11,120 Speaker 1: everywhere else in the Access Powers. And you know, to 98 00:07:11,160 --> 00:07:13,040 Speaker 1: a certain degree as well, I don't want to say lesser, 99 00:07:13,040 --> 00:07:16,080 Speaker 1: but you know, we weren't necessarily doing the things that 100 00:07:16,160 --> 00:07:18,560 Speaker 1: some of these regiments were doing, but we had, um, 101 00:07:18,960 --> 00:07:21,880 Speaker 1: you know, we had camps for Japanese citizens and amrits 102 00:07:21,920 --> 00:07:24,840 Speaker 1: things of that nature. But in the case of Japan, 103 00:07:25,080 --> 00:07:27,280 Speaker 1: these are things that the right wing still refuses to 104 00:07:27,360 --> 00:07:30,400 Speaker 1: kind of countenance, like even sort of acknowledging sort of 105 00:07:30,440 --> 00:07:33,000 Speaker 1: like experimentation, and then of course comfort women and things 106 00:07:33,040 --> 00:07:36,520 Speaker 1: like that. UM. Most recently, former Prime Minister Shenzhabe was 107 00:07:36,520 --> 00:07:39,440 Speaker 1: assassinated in one of his because of his involvement in 108 00:07:39,480 --> 00:07:42,840 Speaker 1: the Nationalists right wing, and also because of his relatives 109 00:07:42,880 --> 00:07:45,800 Speaker 1: involvement in the Japanese military during the war and their 110 00:07:45,800 --> 00:07:48,680 Speaker 1: direct kind of responsibility and implication in those things. UM 111 00:07:48,840 --> 00:07:52,280 Speaker 1: still maintained that Japan did nothing wrong, which was something 112 00:07:52,320 --> 00:07:54,840 Speaker 1: that really did stick in Mishama's craw. He was very 113 00:07:54,960 --> 00:07:57,440 Speaker 1: nihilistic individual, but I think he also had a sense 114 00:07:57,440 --> 00:08:00,760 Speaker 1: of conscience and for his own sort of political aims 115 00:08:00,760 --> 00:08:04,320 Speaker 1: and ideas. He didn't think that the sort of noble character, 116 00:08:04,560 --> 00:08:06,960 Speaker 1: the essence of what he thought was the Japanese character, 117 00:08:07,040 --> 00:08:10,560 Speaker 1: could be retained unless those accounts were settled in some 118 00:08:10,600 --> 00:08:13,560 Speaker 1: way quite publicly. Even UM, you do not get to 119 00:08:13,600 --> 00:08:16,040 Speaker 1: have the sort of moral kind of high road if 120 00:08:16,080 --> 00:08:18,360 Speaker 1: you've committed acts like this seems to be the kind 121 00:08:18,360 --> 00:08:21,600 Speaker 1: of way he he saw things. The nationalism is what 122 00:08:21,800 --> 00:08:28,080 Speaker 1: like a backlash against like overly um kind of globalist 123 00:08:28,120 --> 00:08:31,240 Speaker 1: thinking like after World War two and and and you know, 124 00:08:31,280 --> 00:08:33,560 Speaker 1: the idea of kind of like let's play nice with 125 00:08:33,600 --> 00:08:35,760 Speaker 1: the rest of the world. Like where where does this 126 00:08:35,960 --> 00:08:39,040 Speaker 1: nationalist It's interesting cause it's tempered nationalism right because it 127 00:08:39,120 --> 00:08:41,680 Speaker 1: is saying, admit fault. But then let's go back in 128 00:08:41,720 --> 00:08:44,320 Speaker 1: our bubble. Is that am i? Am I getting that right? 129 00:08:44,679 --> 00:08:46,520 Speaker 1: That is, that is basically it. And the thing that's 130 00:08:46,520 --> 00:08:50,800 Speaker 1: worth noting is that UM Japan had experienced something akin 131 00:08:50,880 --> 00:08:53,760 Speaker 1: to the Martial plan in Europe, right wherein like after 132 00:08:53,800 --> 00:08:56,240 Speaker 1: the war, we're rebuilding Europe in our own image. We 133 00:08:56,400 --> 00:08:58,760 Speaker 1: basically did the same thing, I would say, to an 134 00:08:58,800 --> 00:09:02,600 Speaker 1: even more intense degree. In Japan. There is no standing army. 135 00:09:02,640 --> 00:09:05,160 Speaker 1: For instance, there's only the Special Defense Forces, and that's 136 00:09:05,200 --> 00:09:09,840 Speaker 1: by chartered constitution of the occupation government. We held and 137 00:09:09,920 --> 00:09:13,680 Speaker 1: still hold a great deal of property, including military bases 138 00:09:13,679 --> 00:09:16,880 Speaker 1: in Okinawa for instance. That's that Special Defense Force still 139 00:09:16,960 --> 00:09:20,320 Speaker 1: holds to this day. And of course, like the globalism, 140 00:09:20,520 --> 00:09:24,520 Speaker 1: the materialism, the kind of transacting this culture into capitalism, 141 00:09:24,559 --> 00:09:28,560 Speaker 1: which of course resulted in rapid growth and cultural change 142 00:09:28,600 --> 00:09:31,240 Speaker 1: over the course of the twentieth century, resulting eventually in 143 00:09:31,280 --> 00:09:35,520 Speaker 1: a crash that decimated Japan's economy throughout the nineties. All 144 00:09:35,520 --> 00:09:38,480 Speaker 1: of these things, Misha massaw is a kind of a 145 00:09:38,600 --> 00:09:41,960 Speaker 1: tempering of like the Japanese essence, the Japanese character, a 146 00:09:42,000 --> 00:09:44,400 Speaker 1: loss of who they were as people in the sort 147 00:09:44,440 --> 00:09:48,120 Speaker 1: of traditional sense. And one of the things that's interesting 148 00:09:48,160 --> 00:09:50,520 Speaker 1: about his views on these sorts of things is that 149 00:09:50,559 --> 00:09:53,560 Speaker 1: he was always very very clear that like, these are 150 00:09:53,600 --> 00:09:57,480 Speaker 1: not political sort of sentiments or feelings, which is a 151 00:09:57,559 --> 00:09:59,760 Speaker 1: thing that is very common among the right wing to 152 00:09:59,840 --> 00:10:02,800 Speaker 1: do politics and to say this isn't political. We're returning 153 00:10:02,800 --> 00:10:06,960 Speaker 1: to a natural order, which is that reactionary nostalgia that 154 00:10:07,000 --> 00:10:09,760 Speaker 1: I've sort of maybe made reference to last episode, which 155 00:10:09,760 --> 00:10:12,120 Speaker 1: seems to me to be the substance of where Mishima 156 00:10:12,200 --> 00:10:14,040 Speaker 1: was coming from at this point of his life. And 157 00:10:14,080 --> 00:10:16,520 Speaker 1: we can talk a bit more about reactionary nostalgia as 158 00:10:16,520 --> 00:10:19,559 Speaker 1: a kind of right wing concern and phenomenon, but I'm 159 00:10:19,600 --> 00:10:21,439 Speaker 1: sure we have other more pressing matters to get to 160 00:10:21,520 --> 00:10:23,320 Speaker 1: with regards to where our man is at in the 161 00:10:23,400 --> 00:10:27,920 Speaker 1: late sixties on into nineteen seventy there's something really really 162 00:10:28,000 --> 00:10:31,160 Speaker 1: fascinating here too. We established pretty well in Part one 163 00:10:31,200 --> 00:10:37,560 Speaker 1: that Mishma is looking for recognition and fame, maybe even 164 00:10:37,600 --> 00:10:42,520 Speaker 1: a little notoriety beyond the confines of Japanese culture. But 165 00:10:43,000 --> 00:10:49,080 Speaker 1: Japan has historically been somewhat closed society to outsiders. Even today, 166 00:10:49,120 --> 00:10:52,320 Speaker 1: the population is quite homogeneous and comparison to many other 167 00:10:52,360 --> 00:10:56,600 Speaker 1: countries its size, so it's an interesting wrinkle to me 168 00:10:57,120 --> 00:11:01,280 Speaker 1: that while wanting to be a public figure on the 169 00:11:01,320 --> 00:11:07,880 Speaker 1: global stage, Mishima also increasingly did not want the global 170 00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:12,760 Speaker 1: stage visiting and perhaps, in his opinion, diluting the cultural 171 00:11:12,800 --> 00:11:16,880 Speaker 1: framework and fabric of Japan. And this is when he 172 00:11:16,920 --> 00:11:23,040 Speaker 1: starts getting really involved with military forces. You mentioned the 173 00:11:23,080 --> 00:11:26,520 Speaker 1: self Defense Force, which is still, as you said, a 174 00:11:26,679 --> 00:11:31,400 Speaker 1: thing in Japan, although sometimes, depending on China's activities in 175 00:11:31,440 --> 00:11:36,640 Speaker 1: the region, you will hear politicians, domestic politicians arguing for 176 00:11:36,800 --> 00:11:44,120 Speaker 1: more militarization. Tell us a little bit about how Mishima 177 00:11:44,280 --> 00:11:47,360 Speaker 1: came up with the idea of making his own army 178 00:11:47,760 --> 00:11:49,920 Speaker 1: or militia. We could say, well, I think part of 179 00:11:49,920 --> 00:11:53,520 Speaker 1: it comes from an early effort in Um and it's 180 00:11:53,520 --> 00:11:55,800 Speaker 1: sort of like early years of kind of becoming a 181 00:11:55,920 --> 00:11:59,599 Speaker 1: political figure at the very least an object of political curiosity. 182 00:12:00,240 --> 00:12:03,679 Speaker 1: He drafted a sort of proposal to have ten thousand 183 00:12:04,000 --> 00:12:08,200 Speaker 1: civilians conscripted into the self defense special Defense Forces, and 184 00:12:09,240 --> 00:12:11,800 Speaker 1: basically the idea was to sort of not only shore 185 00:12:11,840 --> 00:12:15,560 Speaker 1: up defense but also bring back that kind of militaristic, 186 00:12:15,640 --> 00:12:19,160 Speaker 1: non imperialistic but sort of like in defense of the 187 00:12:19,240 --> 00:12:23,000 Speaker 1: nation's style of thinking. The defense forces not enough. We 188 00:12:23,040 --> 00:12:28,240 Speaker 1: need to foster a feeling of nationalism and defending the 189 00:12:28,320 --> 00:12:31,280 Speaker 1: character of this place within our citizen red thing that 190 00:12:31,320 --> 00:12:34,440 Speaker 1: has fallen by the wayside as we become more capitalist, 191 00:12:34,559 --> 00:12:37,959 Speaker 1: more materialistic, more global in our perspectives and in our 192 00:12:38,000 --> 00:12:40,720 Speaker 1: spending habits and things like that, allowing other people to 193 00:12:40,800 --> 00:12:43,600 Speaker 1: come in with their corporations and their militaries and things 194 00:12:43,600 --> 00:12:48,360 Speaker 1: of that nature. So naturally this was not necessarily that 195 00:12:48,400 --> 00:12:51,440 Speaker 1: popular a sentiment, And this is a kind of recurring 196 00:12:51,480 --> 00:12:55,599 Speaker 1: motif in Mishama's political activity. The sort of referendum that 197 00:12:55,640 --> 00:12:58,600 Speaker 1: he was trying to write up failed and then in 198 00:12:58,720 --> 00:13:02,720 Speaker 1: the absence of success in that regard, decided, I'll start 199 00:13:02,760 --> 00:13:06,600 Speaker 1: my own militia instead for the defense of the nation 200 00:13:07,760 --> 00:13:11,640 Speaker 1: and sort of like the resumption of what we we 201 00:13:11,679 --> 00:13:14,400 Speaker 1: are as people. It's that kind of first step towards 202 00:13:14,440 --> 00:13:16,960 Speaker 1: getting back to that glorious past that he became so 203 00:13:17,040 --> 00:13:23,719 Speaker 1: obsessed with. I mean, this is this thing, this uh 204 00:13:24,040 --> 00:13:29,360 Speaker 1: idea of a code, right, the honorable behavior that clearly 205 00:13:29,520 --> 00:13:33,840 Speaker 1: comes from this idea of Samurai lineage that clearly is 206 00:13:34,800 --> 00:13:38,200 Speaker 1: part of his logic and sane one must admit the 207 00:13:38,240 --> 00:13:42,200 Speaker 1: sentence of the past. Uh. And this this concept of 208 00:13:42,240 --> 00:13:49,280 Speaker 1: ethical traditions as we see in the Shield society is um. 209 00:13:49,440 --> 00:13:52,360 Speaker 1: He's he's started, I would say even more than a militia. 210 00:13:52,360 --> 00:13:56,200 Speaker 1: It's aiming for this movement, right, because he also, you know, 211 00:13:56,280 --> 00:13:58,400 Speaker 1: he does a little bit of a Tyler Perry thing 212 00:13:58,440 --> 00:14:01,440 Speaker 1: and does all the stuff he may the uniforms. I 213 00:14:01,440 --> 00:14:04,760 Speaker 1: believe he writes a song for the for this society, 214 00:14:04,760 --> 00:14:08,160 Speaker 1: which I have not heard, but I hope it slaps uh. 215 00:14:08,160 --> 00:14:14,080 Speaker 1: And and he uh, he is still writing the entire 216 00:14:14,200 --> 00:14:16,800 Speaker 1: time that he's doing this, right, He's like an every 217 00:14:17,200 --> 00:14:21,120 Speaker 1: night kind of night owl character. Is this the period 218 00:14:21,160 --> 00:14:30,440 Speaker 1: of his life that produces the sea of fertility? It 219 00:14:30,480 --> 00:14:33,400 Speaker 1: absolutely is, And it's sort of like the The Indicator, 220 00:14:33,800 --> 00:14:36,800 Speaker 1: I think most it's one of those things that so 221 00:14:36,960 --> 00:14:41,240 Speaker 1: very obviously aligns with his political ideas and what he 222 00:14:41,320 --> 00:14:45,200 Speaker 1: thought how he thought Japan was in crisis at the time. 223 00:14:45,280 --> 00:14:47,600 Speaker 1: It's a it's a series of four novels, all of 224 00:14:47,640 --> 00:14:51,400 Speaker 1: them are interlocking. It follows the same narrative protagonist as 225 00:14:51,920 --> 00:14:55,480 Speaker 1: he lives through from nineteen twelve through nineteen seventy five, 226 00:14:56,160 --> 00:15:00,120 Speaker 1: and naturally, that's a very very very meticulously select did 227 00:15:00,200 --> 00:15:04,760 Speaker 1: period because this is the period of modernization, Postmaji restoration, 228 00:15:04,840 --> 00:15:07,200 Speaker 1: this is the period of the war and imperial expansion 229 00:15:07,240 --> 00:15:11,400 Speaker 1: and things of that nature. And ultimately what he ends 230 00:15:11,480 --> 00:15:13,960 Speaker 1: up finding is that what the book ends up rehearsing 231 00:15:14,080 --> 00:15:18,720 Speaker 1: is this constant, kind of again backward looking, kind of 232 00:15:18,800 --> 00:15:22,760 Speaker 1: like reverent nostalgia for this path that is dying, and 233 00:15:23,240 --> 00:15:26,240 Speaker 1: this figure from the narrator's life who dies as a 234 00:15:26,320 --> 00:15:29,000 Speaker 1: very young man, and then subsequently throughout the rest of 235 00:15:29,040 --> 00:15:32,680 Speaker 1: the books is reincarnated in new forms as a kind 236 00:15:32,680 --> 00:15:35,760 Speaker 1: of place holder for this old this old life, this 237 00:15:35,840 --> 00:15:40,320 Speaker 1: old time that cannot by any means survive as Japan 238 00:15:40,400 --> 00:15:44,160 Speaker 1: modernizes and continues to modernize. The figure that is reincarnated 239 00:15:44,200 --> 00:15:47,600 Speaker 1: in these novels is always ostensibly doomed to die young, 240 00:15:48,120 --> 00:15:51,400 Speaker 1: which is also very thematically tied to where this all 241 00:15:51,480 --> 00:15:55,560 Speaker 1: goes at the end um this obsession with aging, this 242 00:15:55,680 --> 00:16:01,400 Speaker 1: obsession with losing things, whether that's the body or even consciousness. 243 00:16:01,520 --> 00:16:04,320 Speaker 1: Even for as much of a nihilist as Mishima was, 244 00:16:04,920 --> 00:16:08,400 Speaker 1: he seemed to be absolutely concerned with sort of being 245 00:16:08,440 --> 00:16:11,280 Speaker 1: around in some way of a sort of that kind 246 00:16:11,320 --> 00:16:15,160 Speaker 1: of reproduction of life that goes on into perpetuity, that 247 00:16:15,240 --> 00:16:18,960 Speaker 1: preserves the way things were, so people have something to 248 00:16:19,000 --> 00:16:20,800 Speaker 1: sort of put a hand on and and and know 249 00:16:20,840 --> 00:16:23,760 Speaker 1: where we came from. It's one of those things that's 250 00:16:23,840 --> 00:16:26,440 Speaker 1: utterly understandable. I think, like we think of things in 251 00:16:26,520 --> 00:16:29,640 Speaker 1: terms of legacy and stuff like that, and and sort 252 00:16:29,640 --> 00:16:32,440 Speaker 1: of making sure that we remember things. And one of 253 00:16:32,480 --> 00:16:35,160 Speaker 1: the things I think that Mishima does get correct. And 254 00:16:35,200 --> 00:16:37,320 Speaker 1: I'm coming at this from a left wing perspective, to 255 00:16:37,360 --> 00:16:41,000 Speaker 1: be fully to full disclosure, to be fully transparent. Um. 256 00:16:41,040 --> 00:16:44,720 Speaker 1: As the market and globalism is sort of like expanded 257 00:16:44,760 --> 00:16:47,840 Speaker 1: over the course of the last fifty years, especially, time 258 00:16:47,920 --> 00:16:52,000 Speaker 1: seems to have gone through changes that reflect that UH, 259 00:16:52,040 --> 00:16:55,680 Speaker 1: and people are increasingly remembering less and less and less 260 00:16:56,280 --> 00:16:58,880 Speaker 1: so for instance. You know, it's interesting when he says 261 00:16:59,040 --> 00:17:01,600 Speaker 1: we need to acknowledge the atrocities we committed during World 262 00:17:01,640 --> 00:17:04,879 Speaker 1: War Two because it's absolutely important to our ethics and 263 00:17:04,880 --> 00:17:07,119 Speaker 1: our character that we have a conscience and that we 264 00:17:07,160 --> 00:17:09,720 Speaker 1: take account of these things. The same could be said 265 00:17:09,760 --> 00:17:13,040 Speaker 1: of America's past and present. The same could be said 266 00:17:13,080 --> 00:17:16,760 Speaker 1: of England, Germany, especially Italy, all of this thing. Anybody 267 00:17:16,760 --> 00:17:20,119 Speaker 1: who has had any nation that has an idea or 268 00:17:20,200 --> 00:17:23,879 Speaker 1: concept of national characters um seems to be in like 269 00:17:24,000 --> 00:17:27,600 Speaker 1: lockstep with this constant movement forward. At the expense of, 270 00:17:27,840 --> 00:17:30,800 Speaker 1: you know, accounting for where this all comes from, I'll 271 00:17:30,800 --> 00:17:32,880 Speaker 1: sell you Germany seems to do quite a good job 272 00:17:32,920 --> 00:17:34,960 Speaker 1: at it. I mean they even have. Like I've mentioned 273 00:17:35,000 --> 00:17:37,240 Speaker 1: this before because I'm a big fan of overly long 274 00:17:37,320 --> 00:17:40,119 Speaker 1: the descriptive single German words. But there's a there's a 275 00:17:40,119 --> 00:17:44,600 Speaker 1: word describing collective guilts over the atrocities of the Holocausts, 276 00:17:44,720 --> 00:17:48,320 Speaker 1: Bavanian Heights, Bivalti gum And I was in berlin Um 277 00:17:48,400 --> 00:17:51,760 Speaker 1: for for a trip um last earlier this year, and 278 00:17:51,880 --> 00:17:55,920 Speaker 1: a lot of the museums that are named after Nazi 279 00:17:56,080 --> 00:17:59,359 Speaker 1: you know, officials or or sympathizers at the very least 280 00:17:59,359 --> 00:18:02,600 Speaker 1: like the Bodha Museum, they had a whole wing devoted 281 00:18:02,720 --> 00:18:07,640 Speaker 1: to reconciling that legacy and sort of course correcting, um, 282 00:18:07,880 --> 00:18:09,920 Speaker 1: you know, the legacy of of what the museum stood 283 00:18:09,960 --> 00:18:12,200 Speaker 1: for now and all of that pertains kind of to 284 00:18:12,400 --> 00:18:16,119 Speaker 1: that collective national kind of identity. So that really is 285 00:18:16,440 --> 00:18:19,679 Speaker 1: it's difficult to do. It requires buy in on a 286 00:18:19,800 --> 00:18:23,560 Speaker 1: very large scale to do it correctly. Um, And I think, 287 00:18:23,680 --> 00:18:25,520 Speaker 1: you know, I think that's something that they're very much 288 00:18:25,520 --> 00:18:28,639 Speaker 1: fascinates me as well. Yeah, it's still a struggle. You know. 289 00:18:28,760 --> 00:18:31,040 Speaker 1: You look at the sort of debate surrounding CRT and 290 00:18:31,080 --> 00:18:33,199 Speaker 1: things of that nature in the past two years that 291 00:18:33,240 --> 00:18:36,120 Speaker 1: have been very public and vocal, and there really does 292 00:18:36,160 --> 00:18:38,959 Speaker 1: seem to be and again it's that reactionary nostalgia, right, 293 00:18:39,200 --> 00:18:42,040 Speaker 1: that feeling that the natural order of things was this 294 00:18:42,200 --> 00:18:45,800 Speaker 1: and there was nothing wrong about it actually, and what 295 00:18:45,920 --> 00:18:47,840 Speaker 1: you do to sort of prop that up is to 296 00:18:47,960 --> 00:18:50,880 Speaker 1: deny that things happen, or to sort of like make 297 00:18:50,920 --> 00:18:55,159 Speaker 1: them less of a sort of anvil in the public consciousness, 298 00:18:55,200 --> 00:18:58,200 Speaker 1: you know, right, And for anybody listening along at home, 299 00:18:58,320 --> 00:19:03,240 Speaker 1: CRT is shorthand for critical race theory, which is not 300 00:19:03,359 --> 00:19:08,119 Speaker 1: really what it's being advertised as in oppositional media. The 301 00:19:08,160 --> 00:19:10,680 Speaker 1: folks who are against it are playing kind of fast 302 00:19:10,720 --> 00:19:14,000 Speaker 1: and loose with the reality of that that kind of study. 303 00:19:14,200 --> 00:19:16,440 Speaker 1: But what it's meant to be is just acknowledging reality, 304 00:19:16,720 --> 00:19:18,600 Speaker 1: and it's just being now used instead of a weapon 305 00:19:18,840 --> 00:19:20,639 Speaker 1: to say, oh no, no, no, you're trying to shove 306 00:19:20,680 --> 00:19:23,560 Speaker 1: all this you know, left wing ideology down the thirds 307 00:19:23,560 --> 00:19:25,720 Speaker 1: of our children. And what it really kind of means is, 308 00:19:25,960 --> 00:19:27,800 Speaker 1: let's just be a little more even handed with our 309 00:19:27,840 --> 00:19:32,000 Speaker 1: description of of of history. It's also college levels, it's 310 00:19:32,040 --> 00:19:37,200 Speaker 1: not anyway, that's that's the primary um. That's the primary cynical, 311 00:19:37,600 --> 00:19:40,880 Speaker 1: misleading statement that I'm talking about. But to to your 312 00:19:41,400 --> 00:19:44,600 Speaker 1: you guys, excellent points about the idea of moving on 313 00:19:44,720 --> 00:19:48,040 Speaker 1: or acknowledging the past. Folks, wherever you live, whatever your 314 00:19:48,119 --> 00:19:51,320 Speaker 1: quarner or neck of the global woods, maybe you'll see 315 00:19:51,320 --> 00:19:56,159 Speaker 1: the individual mileage may vary on a state actor level. 316 00:19:56,640 --> 00:19:59,760 Speaker 1: When I've been in Belgium before, by the way, like 317 00:20:00,040 --> 00:20:02,600 Speaker 1: not too far away from Germany, of course, there's not 318 00:20:02,720 --> 00:20:05,000 Speaker 1: a lot of talk about the atrocities in the Congo. 319 00:20:05,720 --> 00:20:09,440 Speaker 1: I've spent some time in Japan. There's you know, super 320 00:20:09,560 --> 00:20:12,760 Speaker 1: not a lot of talk about stuff that went down 321 00:20:13,119 --> 00:20:16,040 Speaker 1: in mainland China in World War Two or in Korea. 322 00:20:16,480 --> 00:20:19,399 Speaker 1: And so we see that again when I say we 323 00:20:19,440 --> 00:20:21,600 Speaker 1: are the stories are we tell ourselves, I'm not just 324 00:20:21,680 --> 00:20:24,920 Speaker 1: talking about the micro cosmic individual level. I'm talking about 325 00:20:24,960 --> 00:20:29,240 Speaker 1: the macro cosmic state level or nation level. And this 326 00:20:29,320 --> 00:20:33,840 Speaker 1: is something that Mishima is tapping into. One of the 327 00:20:34,040 --> 00:20:39,840 Speaker 1: strangest things that happens with the Shield Society is Mishima 328 00:20:39,920 --> 00:20:43,240 Speaker 1: does this one a d the U tease so beautifully Zach. 329 00:20:43,640 --> 00:20:48,159 Speaker 1: In part one of our series, he says, you know, 330 00:20:49,560 --> 00:20:52,000 Speaker 1: I gotta keep my I gotta you know, like offspring, 331 00:20:52,040 --> 00:20:55,560 Speaker 1: I gotta keep them separated, right, my literary life and identity, 332 00:20:55,880 --> 00:20:59,919 Speaker 1: my nationalistic military stuff, at least when applied to the 333 00:21:00,000 --> 00:21:03,560 Speaker 1: Shield Society. I was interested to find that he did 334 00:21:03,560 --> 00:21:06,600 Speaker 1: not think literary youth who would have been just like 335 00:21:06,680 --> 00:21:09,040 Speaker 1: him when he was younger, right, very similar. He didn't 336 00:21:09,040 --> 00:21:12,600 Speaker 1: think they were suited for the Shield Society. So there's 337 00:21:12,640 --> 00:21:17,240 Speaker 1: one exception, and it's him. I found that very interesting. Well, again, 338 00:21:17,280 --> 00:21:22,280 Speaker 1: it's that that contradiction that that insecurity, that tension between 339 00:21:22,320 --> 00:21:24,720 Speaker 1: being a man of action and being a man of letters, 340 00:21:24,760 --> 00:21:28,760 Speaker 1: There's a quote from his book Kyoko's House, which is 341 00:21:28,800 --> 00:21:31,800 Speaker 1: featured prominently in the film Mishima Life and Four Chapters, 342 00:21:32,359 --> 00:21:35,200 Speaker 1: this notion there's an actor there who who It's almost 343 00:21:35,280 --> 00:21:37,879 Speaker 1: like a refrain in the story. You know, stage blood 344 00:21:37,920 --> 00:21:41,560 Speaker 1: is no longer enough, letters are no longer enough, thought 345 00:21:42,040 --> 00:21:45,480 Speaker 1: is no longer enough. You have to act. And these 346 00:21:45,520 --> 00:21:47,920 Speaker 1: were things that he wrote very openly about, this kind 347 00:21:47,960 --> 00:21:51,760 Speaker 1: of sense that what we do sort of like engaging 348 00:21:51,800 --> 00:21:57,120 Speaker 1: in philosophy letters. Even his contempt for what he termed ideology, 349 00:21:57,160 --> 00:21:59,840 Speaker 1: which is I'm sorry, sort of interchangeable with politics. He 350 00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:03,760 Speaker 1: can't escape it. Um. It is always kind of in 351 00:22:03,840 --> 00:22:05,840 Speaker 1: service of this thing where it's like we can talk 352 00:22:05,920 --> 00:22:08,640 Speaker 1: until the cows come home, but when things really come 353 00:22:08,680 --> 00:22:10,520 Speaker 1: to a head, there has to be a man of 354 00:22:10,520 --> 00:22:13,400 Speaker 1: action or a woman of action, a person of action, 355 00:22:13,920 --> 00:22:17,280 Speaker 1: someone there to actually move the needle in some meaningful way. 356 00:22:18,119 --> 00:22:20,359 Speaker 1: And he took a he took great pains near the 357 00:22:20,440 --> 00:22:22,359 Speaker 1: end of his life to at least appear to be 358 00:22:22,520 --> 00:22:26,199 Speaker 1: that person, surrounding himself with people that he deemed of 359 00:22:26,240 --> 00:22:30,720 Speaker 1: that character, and his participation in debates within the academic 360 00:22:30,760 --> 00:22:33,880 Speaker 1: circles of the time. We're strangely very fraught, but also 361 00:22:33,920 --> 00:22:37,320 Speaker 1: at the same time begrudgingly respectful. Uh. The New Left 362 00:22:37,400 --> 00:22:39,920 Speaker 1: was arising during this period, as was the New Right, 363 00:22:40,400 --> 00:22:42,800 Speaker 1: in the wake of his work within his militia and 364 00:22:42,840 --> 00:22:45,400 Speaker 1: things like that, and one of the things that each 365 00:22:45,440 --> 00:22:48,320 Speaker 1: of them found was like this sort of simpatico kind 366 00:22:48,320 --> 00:22:52,320 Speaker 1: of set of ideologies, this idea that Japan had been 367 00:22:52,400 --> 00:22:55,560 Speaker 1: kind of set on a path by America specifically to 368 00:22:55,640 --> 00:22:58,679 Speaker 1: sort of denounce itself, to denounce its history, and to 369 00:22:58,800 --> 00:23:01,399 Speaker 1: become sort of like a pet project, for lack of 370 00:23:01,400 --> 00:23:05,200 Speaker 1: a better phrase. And he really resented that, and the 371 00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:09,640 Speaker 1: New Left also resented that. A great deal. Anti Americanism 372 00:23:09,640 --> 00:23:12,959 Speaker 1: was a major component of both the far right and 373 00:23:13,000 --> 00:23:15,920 Speaker 1: the far left of the period, and Mishama seemed to 374 00:23:15,960 --> 00:23:18,880 Speaker 1: be this sort of intermediary figure. Like in the last 375 00:23:18,960 --> 00:23:21,520 Speaker 1: years of his life, he openly debated people at universities, 376 00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:24,119 Speaker 1: and you know, there's always like this sort of because 377 00:23:24,119 --> 00:23:26,880 Speaker 1: this is a very violent time. Their students occupying Nehon 378 00:23:27,040 --> 00:23:31,680 Speaker 1: University and University of Tokyo eight thousand riot cops, their 379 00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:34,640 Speaker 1: struggle sessions within these New Left movements that resulted one 380 00:23:34,680 --> 00:23:37,800 Speaker 1: to four people dying between the years of nineteen seventy one, 381 00:23:37,920 --> 00:23:41,800 Speaker 1: two thousand three, Like, it's such a politically fraught time 382 00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:44,399 Speaker 1: that we don't hear much about because our entire understanding 383 00:23:44,400 --> 00:23:46,280 Speaker 1: of this place, and I think many places that we 384 00:23:46,320 --> 00:23:50,320 Speaker 1: don't have a close relationship to are just unfortunately as 385 00:23:50,320 --> 00:23:53,639 Speaker 1: it's kind of far away exotic colony wherein like they 386 00:23:53,680 --> 00:23:57,960 Speaker 1: are all of these political affiliations, these political conflicts that 387 00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:02,280 Speaker 1: are unfolding people you young people being killed by occupation 388 00:24:02,400 --> 00:24:07,080 Speaker 1: forces secretly. Like, it's so fascinating to see how, especially 389 00:24:07,080 --> 00:24:09,399 Speaker 1: around sixty eight, where all the other labor and leftist 390 00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:12,520 Speaker 1: movements are arising worldwide and protest of like the emerging 391 00:24:12,560 --> 00:24:16,320 Speaker 1: new neoliberal order. You see all of these things happening, 392 00:24:16,359 --> 00:24:18,560 Speaker 1: and it is happening everywhere, and to have that so 393 00:24:18,640 --> 00:24:21,359 Speaker 1: diminished in our discussion of history is just fascinating to 394 00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:27,159 Speaker 1: me and dangerously convenient people. Yeah, and that's why I 395 00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:29,080 Speaker 1: think that's a danger. You know, we have to remember 396 00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:34,720 Speaker 1: history is a conversation, right, and it's uh, Faulkner was 397 00:24:34,800 --> 00:24:37,320 Speaker 1: right when he said the past isn't past, you know, 398 00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:41,200 Speaker 1: it affects us today. So let's dive into this period 399 00:24:41,200 --> 00:24:46,240 Speaker 1: we're talking about, let's say nineteen sixty nine through the seventies. 400 00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:50,040 Speaker 1: We know that per your research, you site a wonderful 401 00:24:50,119 --> 00:24:54,320 Speaker 1: article in the Paris Review. We know that around nineteen 402 00:24:54,359 --> 00:25:00,960 Speaker 1: sixty nine is when Mishima starts seriously plau to take 403 00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:04,360 Speaker 1: his own life, starts really thinking about this. Uh. This 404 00:25:04,440 --> 00:25:07,119 Speaker 1: is also the time he has a big show for 405 00:25:07,160 --> 00:25:10,800 Speaker 1: the first anniversary of the Shield Society. I thought there 406 00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:15,520 Speaker 1: was a very neat, almost Capote esque note to this. 407 00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:19,639 Speaker 1: He invites a hundred guests, some from all over the world, 408 00:25:19,680 --> 00:25:22,600 Speaker 1: many from Japan, and if he didn't make it, he 409 00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:26,000 Speaker 1: never talks to you again. That's it. You have this, 410 00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:32,640 Speaker 1: This disrespect shall not stand. Uh where when we talk 411 00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:37,800 Speaker 1: about him sort of planning to take his own life, 412 00:25:37,840 --> 00:25:42,680 Speaker 1: becoming increasingly militaristic, and when he's uh he resigns from 413 00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:46,040 Speaker 1: the Symposium on Culture and stuff, he's really doubling down 414 00:25:46,240 --> 00:25:50,760 Speaker 1: on this more militaristic aspect. How connected is the Japanese 415 00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:53,560 Speaker 1: public with this? If if you ballparked it, like, if 416 00:25:53,560 --> 00:25:56,360 Speaker 1: you're a person in Japan here in the late nineties, 417 00:25:56,440 --> 00:26:00,560 Speaker 1: sixties or at least seventies, is there a common opinion 418 00:26:00,880 --> 00:26:04,720 Speaker 1: about Mishima or is it more again just sort of 419 00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:07,960 Speaker 1: you see what you want to see in a public figure. 420 00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:10,440 Speaker 1: I mean a lot of that comes down to again, 421 00:26:10,520 --> 00:26:14,959 Speaker 1: that cult of personality, that ostentatiousness. I mean it, he 422 00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:19,320 Speaker 1: remains a kind of not necessarily marginal culturally, but certainly 423 00:26:19,359 --> 00:26:22,560 Speaker 1: somebody who's increasing kind of participation of these things is 424 00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:28,360 Speaker 1: is seen as kind of ridiculous, absurd um. And one 425 00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:31,560 Speaker 1: of the things that's important to remember again is that 426 00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:33,880 Speaker 1: like the right wing did not like him, the left 427 00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:36,200 Speaker 1: wing had a grudging respect for him, but found him 428 00:26:36,240 --> 00:26:40,960 Speaker 1: to be quote an anachronistic guerrilla and um, I'm serious. 429 00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:44,720 Speaker 1: And it was often met with threats of violence on 430 00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:47,880 Speaker 1: both sides. And it seems to me like it's it's 431 00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:50,159 Speaker 1: it's so difficult to pen these things down because we 432 00:26:50,200 --> 00:26:52,880 Speaker 1: don't know the man. We can't know the man. There 433 00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:55,399 Speaker 1: seems to be something of like the death drive at 434 00:26:55,400 --> 00:26:57,040 Speaker 1: the center of all of this stuff, which is a 435 00:26:57,040 --> 00:26:59,080 Speaker 1: point that I think we can get to later on. 436 00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:01,560 Speaker 1: I don't think necessarily cared at the end of his 437 00:27:01,600 --> 00:27:04,239 Speaker 1: life how he was received so much so that like 438 00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:08,360 Speaker 1: as much as he wanted to be seen at nothing 439 00:27:08,440 --> 00:27:10,840 Speaker 1: if nothing else, is a man of action and all 440 00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:14,840 Speaker 1: that entails. And you get to the point where he's 441 00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:17,840 Speaker 1: doing these controversial things as an openly gay man who 442 00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:21,080 Speaker 1: surrounds himself with with college age men, and because of 443 00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:23,680 Speaker 1: his status as a literary figure, there's things were sort 444 00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:26,400 Speaker 1: of controversial and met with like a very skeptical eye. 445 00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:30,639 Speaker 1: Although it is plausible that he saw that as a 446 00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:35,560 Speaker 1: modern continuation of samurai tradition. Absolutely, and that's sort of 447 00:27:35,560 --> 00:27:38,639 Speaker 1: something we've lost in this discussion and their themes in 448 00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:40,560 Speaker 1: the book, In many of the books where you know, 449 00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:43,480 Speaker 1: the sort of love between an older boy and a 450 00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:46,280 Speaker 1: younger boy is is kind of a recurring motif and 451 00:27:46,320 --> 00:27:49,480 Speaker 1: in fact, like um, one of the things that comes 452 00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:51,840 Speaker 1: out at the conversation surrounding his death is how like 453 00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:54,680 Speaker 1: common a phenomenon this was, even even in this sort 454 00:27:54,680 --> 00:27:57,600 Speaker 1: of ty shoe or not even in the post Meji restoration, 455 00:27:58,080 --> 00:28:00,879 Speaker 1: that's not something they would have embraced publicly. It was 456 00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:04,080 Speaker 1: like absolutely, you know, an open secret maybe, but definitely 457 00:28:04,119 --> 00:28:07,360 Speaker 1: not you know, something that would be you know touted 458 00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:12,120 Speaker 1: or like you know, even like emphasized in historical accounts. Right, absolutely, yeah, 459 00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:15,679 Speaker 1: I know that's spot on. So he does not become 460 00:28:15,760 --> 00:28:19,919 Speaker 1: this this kind of like firebrand, this very public figure 461 00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:22,480 Speaker 1: in the way that he probably wants. And you know 462 00:28:22,560 --> 00:28:25,760 Speaker 1: that's indicative of the reception of the parade. It's indicative 463 00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:28,959 Speaker 1: in the reception for his referendum for conscripting ten thousand 464 00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:32,720 Speaker 1: civilians into the SDF, And it's also in the quizzical 465 00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:36,639 Speaker 1: response given to this militia um, which is truly like 466 00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:39,560 Speaker 1: a very absurd thing for a writer of novels to 467 00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:44,240 Speaker 1: be doing in any historical context, much less than nineteen 468 00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:48,240 Speaker 1: sixties and seventies. Right, it maybe makes more sense if 469 00:28:48,320 --> 00:28:51,960 Speaker 1: you are a if if you flip the evolution, right, 470 00:28:52,080 --> 00:28:56,520 Speaker 1: if you are a military individual of note, and then 471 00:28:56,640 --> 00:28:59,720 Speaker 1: later you write novels that for some reason, is it 472 00:28:59,760 --> 00:29:06,080 Speaker 1: transition that I think more people find understandable, Zach, I 473 00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:09,000 Speaker 1: want us to go to I want us to go 474 00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:17,600 Speaker 1: to November nineteen seventy. This is where Mishima gets heckled. 475 00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:21,600 Speaker 1: They heckle the heck out of him. Uh, And can 476 00:29:22,360 --> 00:29:25,640 Speaker 1: this speech that he gives that is I think it's 477 00:29:25,680 --> 00:29:29,320 Speaker 1: supposed to be ten minutes. It's not about literary literary matters. 478 00:29:29,880 --> 00:29:35,280 Speaker 1: It's not a it's not a performance of poetry or 479 00:29:35,320 --> 00:29:38,479 Speaker 1: a meditation on the nature of the soul. He is 480 00:29:38,960 --> 00:29:42,920 Speaker 1: at a balcony where he is giving a ten minute 481 00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:48,040 Speaker 1: I think he means it as a persuasive argument about 482 00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:52,320 Speaker 1: his political theories, and in terms of being well received 483 00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:54,160 Speaker 1: on a scale of one to ten, this is like 484 00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:58,640 Speaker 1: a negative two, negative three. So one of the things 485 00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:01,520 Speaker 1: that that we kind of have in uh tiptoeing around 486 00:30:01,560 --> 00:30:04,360 Speaker 1: here is that this was a this was a hostage 487 00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:16,479 Speaker 1: situation and attempted Kudata on the morning of November he 488 00:30:16,680 --> 00:30:21,840 Speaker 1: and several members of the Tatokai, the Shield Society. UM. 489 00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:25,760 Speaker 1: What they end up doing is they storm, but they 490 00:30:25,840 --> 00:30:29,120 Speaker 1: have an official meeting with the general, their general kanne 491 00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:33,440 Speaker 1: Toshi Mashita. There's, of course, no expectation that anything is 492 00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:36,440 Speaker 1: going to go wrong. This seems to be an utterly 493 00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:39,120 Speaker 1: cordial event. And in fact, that morning Mishima had dropped 494 00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:41,280 Speaker 1: off the final pages of the final novel of the 495 00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:44,479 Speaker 1: Sea of Fertility, the Decay of the Angel that morning, 496 00:30:44,520 --> 00:30:46,800 Speaker 1: which is in and of itself, is this highly symbolic 497 00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:51,520 Speaker 1: performative gesture. UM. He was then taken hostage by the 498 00:30:51,560 --> 00:30:54,960 Speaker 1: members of the Shield Society General Machida, that is, and 499 00:30:55,000 --> 00:31:00,480 Speaker 1: then Mishima ascended the balcony and then gave this speech 500 00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:04,960 Speaker 1: that basically was designed to incite all of the the 501 00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:09,040 Speaker 1: sort of servicemen in the garrison to um denounce the 502 00:31:09,040 --> 00:31:13,600 Speaker 1: occupation government, to denounce the charters that had sort of 503 00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:18,320 Speaker 1: conscripted the Japanese military to this kind of defense exclusive status, 504 00:31:18,960 --> 00:31:21,640 Speaker 1: um the sort of re elevation of the emperor to 505 00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:24,840 Speaker 1: his status within society, because again, he didn't feel the 506 00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:27,400 Speaker 1: emperor should have abdicated in the way that he did, 507 00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:29,720 Speaker 1: felt that they should acknowledge war crimes, did not feel 508 00:31:29,720 --> 00:31:32,760 Speaker 1: that the emperor should have walked away from his traditional 509 00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:38,600 Speaker 1: place within Japanese society. And then after finishing this address, 510 00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:42,640 Speaker 1: which he intended to make for half an hour, within minutes, 511 00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:46,680 Speaker 1: this group of young servicemen, uh, seven minutes are just 512 00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:52,360 Speaker 1: berating him with insults, madman, idiot Japan? Is it peace? 513 00:31:52,880 --> 00:31:55,560 Speaker 1: Do you think he was? Was he expecting that or 514 00:31:55,680 --> 00:31:58,280 Speaker 1: was this shocking to him to do a degree or 515 00:31:58,360 --> 00:32:00,280 Speaker 1: was he just sort of like a little bit he 516 00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:03,320 Speaker 1: losing it. This is up for contention and something that 517 00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:04,520 Speaker 1: I think we'll get into it at the end of 518 00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:08,240 Speaker 1: the episode. I personally don't believe that anybody who's serious 519 00:32:08,280 --> 00:32:12,080 Speaker 1: about a project like this knows that this is doomed 520 00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:16,960 Speaker 1: to fail. Right that taking six or so of your 521 00:32:16,960 --> 00:32:20,480 Speaker 1: best chaps to the to the military base with swords 522 00:32:21,280 --> 00:32:24,640 Speaker 1: and thinking that you're going to overthrow the government seems 523 00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:29,640 Speaker 1: like an absolutely hubristic kind of thing, like total performative, 524 00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:33,600 Speaker 1: absolutely performative. And so what ends up happening is that 525 00:32:33,640 --> 00:32:38,360 Speaker 1: he's being jeered by all of these people. He then, yeah, 526 00:32:38,400 --> 00:32:42,520 Speaker 1: it's it's really intense um and probably no doubt humiliating 527 00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:44,920 Speaker 1: if he is capable of feeling humiliation on that level. 528 00:32:45,080 --> 00:32:47,640 Speaker 1: We'll get to that stuff in a moment. But he 529 00:32:48,040 --> 00:32:51,560 Speaker 1: immediately withdraws from the balcony, and this is a trigger 530 00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:56,040 Speaker 1: warding for violence, takes the serum the ceremonial cross legged 531 00:32:56,040 --> 00:32:59,800 Speaker 1: seat on the ground, jam's a dagger into his abdomen 532 00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:03,000 Speaker 1: and then draws it across it. And then after that, 533 00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:06,440 Speaker 1: the attendant that's selected for the final act of seppuku, 534 00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:09,880 Speaker 1: which is kaishaku, which is the ritual beheading which puts 535 00:33:09,920 --> 00:33:14,000 Speaker 1: the committer out of their misery. This young man named 536 00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:19,160 Speaker 1: Marita Massa Katsu, somebody who has in the intervening years 537 00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:23,440 Speaker 1: been speculated to have been Mishima's last lover, draws the katana, 538 00:33:24,360 --> 00:33:28,720 Speaker 1: makes the swing and then fails to cleanly behead him. 539 00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:31,920 Speaker 1: So this is already itself a tragedy that is very 540 00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:34,680 Speaker 1: quickly becoming farce in a way that I don't think 541 00:33:34,680 --> 00:33:38,080 Speaker 1: even Mishima would have appreciated as morbid as his sort 542 00:33:38,080 --> 00:33:40,360 Speaker 1: of sense of humor and since of the world was. 543 00:33:41,120 --> 00:33:45,440 Speaker 1: So what ended up happening was that somebody else stepped 544 00:33:45,440 --> 00:33:49,240 Speaker 1: in a practice kindo expert, not an expert, but a 545 00:33:49,320 --> 00:33:51,600 Speaker 1: kindo practitioner. Why didn't they let him do it in 546 00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:53,960 Speaker 1: the first place, man, it seems like that with a 547 00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:56,920 Speaker 1: prerequisite would at least be that you've like, trained with 548 00:33:56,960 --> 00:33:59,280 Speaker 1: a sword to some degree. This kid seems to have 549 00:33:59,360 --> 00:34:02,400 Speaker 1: just botched it. Well, that status of being Mishima's favorite 550 00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:04,320 Speaker 1: probably has a lot to do with that makes sense. 551 00:34:04,800 --> 00:34:10,280 Speaker 1: But he steps in, finishes the job, and then Morita 552 00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:14,280 Speaker 1: himself commits seppuku on the grounds of having disgraced himself 553 00:34:14,320 --> 00:34:16,279 Speaker 1: by not being able to commit the final act of 554 00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:22,120 Speaker 1: the riches. That's meta right there. So basically what you 555 00:34:22,160 --> 00:34:26,560 Speaker 1: have is this incredibly bloody, awful scene, something that is 556 00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:30,640 Speaker 1: in fact stripped straight from the fiction of Mishima himself, 557 00:34:31,320 --> 00:34:34,280 Speaker 1: This ritual suicide in the name of kind of restoring 558 00:34:34,360 --> 00:34:37,799 Speaker 1: national character. The two heads of these men side by 559 00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:42,880 Speaker 1: side on the carpet, just absolute carnage and then um 560 00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:48,040 Speaker 1: obviously scandal, just something that had never happened in modern 561 00:34:48,120 --> 00:34:51,160 Speaker 1: Japanese public life. And mind you, up to this point 562 00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:55,240 Speaker 1: there had been political assassinations, especially within right wing circles. 563 00:34:55,239 --> 00:34:57,399 Speaker 1: There were a number of incidents where right wingers would 564 00:34:57,440 --> 00:35:00,960 Speaker 1: would come upon leftist authors or academics and openly murdered 565 00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:03,200 Speaker 1: them in public. Um at some point they were like 566 00:35:03,239 --> 00:35:05,960 Speaker 1: a sort of right wing elements that were flying planes 567 00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:08,560 Speaker 1: into buildings and things of that nature. Like again, this 568 00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:13,239 Speaker 1: is incredibly conflicted fraud politically time and it reaches this 569 00:35:13,400 --> 00:35:17,399 Speaker 1: punctuation mark the death of the most popular Japanese author 570 00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:21,640 Speaker 1: in the world in the most curious and absurd of circumstances. 571 00:35:21,719 --> 00:35:27,400 Speaker 1: This anachronistic act that can't help but resemble pageantry more 572 00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:30,160 Speaker 1: than anything that would be like a kind of expression 573 00:35:30,200 --> 00:35:33,200 Speaker 1: of a real politic. And I think ultimately that's where 574 00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:35,000 Speaker 1: we kind of end up going with all of this stuff, 575 00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:37,480 Speaker 1: is like the sort of open questions, the ambiguity whether 576 00:35:37,560 --> 00:35:40,440 Speaker 1: or not Mischimo is absolutely serious about this plot working, 577 00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:43,080 Speaker 1: or whether if not this was all just a pretense 578 00:35:43,719 --> 00:35:47,960 Speaker 1: for something else. Yeah, it's a good question, Zac, because 579 00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:52,279 Speaker 1: also you know, to the point about pageantry, the suicide 580 00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:57,680 Speaker 1: is planned or at lea see times it seems to 581 00:35:57,920 --> 00:36:01,080 Speaker 1: coincide with the opening of the Appendese Diet, which is 582 00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:06,880 Speaker 1: the Japanese legislature. He also has very specific wishes about 583 00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:12,520 Speaker 1: how his Buddhist name is rendered postmortem. Uh. He needs 584 00:36:12,560 --> 00:36:17,960 Speaker 1: to be dressed in his Shield Society uniform. He bluntly says, 585 00:36:18,520 --> 00:36:22,760 Speaker 1: I die not as a literary man, but entirely as 586 00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:25,880 Speaker 1: a military man. And when we when we get to 587 00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:29,319 Speaker 1: these these questions, and you phrase it so beautifully, man, 588 00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:34,759 Speaker 1: the puzzling ambiguous questions. I think this is one of 589 00:36:34,800 --> 00:36:40,040 Speaker 1: the most fascinating parts of the story for you and 590 00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:44,680 Speaker 1: for me as well. Honestly, do you think this is 591 00:36:45,120 --> 00:36:48,400 Speaker 1: in Mishima's mind which we can't totally read. Do you 592 00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:53,319 Speaker 1: think he sees this, as you say, a punctuation mark. 593 00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:55,719 Speaker 1: Do you think this is meant to impart some sort 594 00:36:55,800 --> 00:36:59,560 Speaker 1: of lesson or statement to the people of Japan at large? 595 00:37:00,360 --> 00:37:03,640 Speaker 1: I think, and again, this is all just speculation and interpretation, 596 00:37:03,680 --> 00:37:06,960 Speaker 1: which is about as valuable as um probably a pocket 597 00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:11,040 Speaker 1: full of lint in many cases. But The thing about 598 00:37:11,120 --> 00:37:13,200 Speaker 1: this is is that I've already brought up this sort 599 00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:15,880 Speaker 1: of doomed to failedness of this enterprise, the kind of 600 00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:20,680 Speaker 1: absurd um hubris that goes into committing attempting to commit 601 00:37:20,719 --> 00:37:24,239 Speaker 1: kudata with a group of like several student aged men 602 00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:29,319 Speaker 1: armed exclusively with bladed weapons. To me, I think what 603 00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:31,960 Speaker 1: this is trying to impart, which is something that even 604 00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:33,839 Speaker 1: in his sort of like the notes that he left 605 00:37:33,840 --> 00:37:36,760 Speaker 1: to his wife surrounding this plot, which is very strongly 606 00:37:36,800 --> 00:37:40,360 Speaker 1: suggested this was the plan, so he told his wife 607 00:37:40,560 --> 00:37:43,000 Speaker 1: and this is a quote. Even if I'm not immediately understood, 608 00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:45,360 Speaker 1: it's okay because I'll be understood by the Japan of 609 00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:48,080 Speaker 1: fifty or a hundred years time. Which is such a 610 00:37:48,120 --> 00:37:51,399 Speaker 1: tragic kind of um thing to say, because I don't 611 00:37:51,400 --> 00:37:53,600 Speaker 1: think that's the case at all. I think it's happened, 612 00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:56,759 Speaker 1: it's not going to happen. The ambiguity of the thing, 613 00:37:56,840 --> 00:37:59,319 Speaker 1: the sort of performative absurdity of the thing, it kind 614 00:37:59,360 --> 00:38:03,399 Speaker 1: of preclude any real interpretation of understanding of what all 615 00:38:03,440 --> 00:38:06,200 Speaker 1: of this actually was. And the thing that the film 616 00:38:06,239 --> 00:38:08,840 Speaker 1: seems to try to sort of impart on all of this, 617 00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:11,480 Speaker 1: and the film mishim in Life of Four Chapters. And 618 00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:14,160 Speaker 1: you know the photographs that he had taken of himself 619 00:38:14,320 --> 00:38:17,080 Speaker 1: in the throes of many different suicides in the final 620 00:38:17,160 --> 00:38:21,600 Speaker 1: days of his life. Photographs that he himself meticulously composed 621 00:38:21,600 --> 00:38:23,799 Speaker 1: but had shot by somebody else. His his sort of 622 00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:27,840 Speaker 1: ideas about James Dean and like sort of dying beautifully 623 00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:30,280 Speaker 1: at in the young age. Like it very much seems 624 00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:34,880 Speaker 1: that Mishima could not be a man of action and 625 00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:39,280 Speaker 1: understood this inherently. M hm. His body at that point 626 00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:42,360 Speaker 1: was already in decline. He he was conscripted into the 627 00:38:42,360 --> 00:38:44,719 Speaker 1: military during the war in the final years of it. 628 00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:48,120 Speaker 1: He did not make it into service. And the film 629 00:38:48,120 --> 00:38:52,600 Speaker 1: Mishima in Life of Four Chapters implies that he in 630 00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:56,000 Speaker 1: fact played up his his his asthma symptoms so as 631 00:38:56,040 --> 00:38:59,480 Speaker 1: to avoid service. And the thing is too that that's 632 00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:01,720 Speaker 1: where all of the body billing comes from, this trying 633 00:39:01,760 --> 00:39:05,320 Speaker 1: to sort of like make himself this like stone cut figure, 634 00:39:05,640 --> 00:39:08,279 Speaker 1: this man of action. There's another lovely scene in the 635 00:39:08,280 --> 00:39:10,680 Speaker 1: film where he's at a dance hall where young men 636 00:39:10,719 --> 00:39:12,760 Speaker 1: are dancing with one another and he has a partner 637 00:39:13,360 --> 00:39:15,560 Speaker 1: and the partner places his hand on his shoulders and 638 00:39:15,560 --> 00:39:19,400 Speaker 1: mind you, this is Mishima in top physical form and says, 639 00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:23,640 Speaker 1: your shoulders are kind of flabby, and Mishima is absolutely 640 00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:27,320 Speaker 1: inconsolable about this, and just like leaves without saying anything, 641 00:39:27,440 --> 00:39:30,719 Speaker 1: and like in tears, like invisible tears, leaves the dance hall, 642 00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:33,839 Speaker 1: and then later in the night goes to a pay 643 00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:37,000 Speaker 1: phone outside of this young man's apartment and calls him 644 00:39:37,080 --> 00:39:39,879 Speaker 1: and essentially says, you're young and beautiful and I am 645 00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:43,760 Speaker 1: old and dying, so please be tender in the future 646 00:39:43,800 --> 00:39:47,200 Speaker 1: with anybody you meet. And it's this incredibly lovely scene 647 00:39:47,320 --> 00:39:49,520 Speaker 1: that I think also gives away a lot of this 648 00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:54,520 Speaker 1: guy's personality and sort of the anxieties surrounding the simple 649 00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:57,840 Speaker 1: fact that, you know, his literary career, while still fruitful, 650 00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:01,160 Speaker 1: was sort of on the wye. He wasn't taken seriously 651 00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:04,360 Speaker 1: as an actor. Um, he wasn't taken seriously as a 652 00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:09,320 Speaker 1: political ideal logue somebody whose influence and body were declining, 653 00:40:09,680 --> 00:40:11,759 Speaker 1: at least to him at a rate that was just 654 00:40:13,120 --> 00:40:15,120 Speaker 1: he couldn't abide it. Well, it's a hard thing to 655 00:40:15,160 --> 00:40:18,239 Speaker 1: wrap your head around in general. I mean, you know, 656 00:40:18,360 --> 00:40:21,480 Speaker 1: just the idea of you know, being replaced or you know, 657 00:40:21,560 --> 00:40:24,359 Speaker 1: getting older and feeling you know, if you're if you're 658 00:40:24,360 --> 00:40:26,799 Speaker 1: someone who seeks fame, and the way that this guy 659 00:40:26,800 --> 00:40:30,360 Speaker 1: obviously did to kind of base your whole personality around 660 00:40:30,680 --> 00:40:33,040 Speaker 1: you know, this character you've created yourself, and no longer 661 00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:35,600 Speaker 1: does it kind of fly anymore, And then who are 662 00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:37,960 Speaker 1: you at that point? Especially since you know, he was 663 00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:41,440 Speaker 1: kind of considered soft and weak and the whole Grandmother's situation, 664 00:40:41,480 --> 00:40:44,680 Speaker 1: and now he styled himself as this like macho kind 665 00:40:44,719 --> 00:40:47,839 Speaker 1: of you know, warrior kind of figure, and then that's 666 00:40:47,840 --> 00:40:50,120 Speaker 1: starting to waite too, So it really does seem like 667 00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:55,000 Speaker 1: he was kind of on this doomsday course the whole time. Zach. 668 00:40:55,040 --> 00:40:57,680 Speaker 1: You mentioned from the start that even in his writing 669 00:40:57,960 --> 00:41:01,240 Speaker 1: he sort of fancied himself of this sort of tragic 670 00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:05,920 Speaker 1: martyr type figure. Absolutely again that notion of stage blood 671 00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:09,200 Speaker 1: not being enough, that noted, that notion of that tension 672 00:41:09,200 --> 00:41:12,759 Speaker 1: between action and inaction, um, the life of the mind 673 00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:16,759 Speaker 1: versus the body, and quite frankly, and this is sort 674 00:41:16,760 --> 00:41:18,920 Speaker 1: of like the point that I've been kind of gesturing 675 00:41:18,960 --> 00:41:21,080 Speaker 1: towards throughout the whole thing. This is a type of 676 00:41:21,120 --> 00:41:25,759 Speaker 1: neurosis that reactionary nostalgia tends to engender the crisis of 677 00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:29,480 Speaker 1: the crisis of masculinity and modern times for instance, right, 678 00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:32,440 Speaker 1: the men's right stuff, you know, these figures that style 679 00:41:32,520 --> 00:41:37,520 Speaker 1: themselves is like these sort of these you know these men, right, uh, 680 00:41:37,560 --> 00:41:41,640 Speaker 1: these moral compasses exactly, and you know, obviously like here 681 00:41:41,719 --> 00:41:46,719 Speaker 1: it's a the inflection point is like Western philosophy, antiquity, etcetera. 682 00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:50,080 Speaker 1: There's so many similarities between me that and Mishuma's attitude 683 00:41:50,080 --> 00:41:52,320 Speaker 1: surrounding the aesthetics and the sort of ethics of Japan 684 00:41:52,320 --> 00:41:54,359 Speaker 1: and how those two are tied. And I think one 685 00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:57,520 Speaker 1: of the things that these people usually run into, and 686 00:41:57,560 --> 00:42:00,680 Speaker 1: I think should run into, is that aesthetic can be 687 00:42:01,040 --> 00:42:05,640 Speaker 1: politically inflected. It is not politics. Culture will generally tend 688 00:42:05,719 --> 00:42:10,120 Speaker 1: conservative regardless, because that's the nature of consensus, for better 689 00:42:10,200 --> 00:42:11,920 Speaker 1: or worse. And what we end up with is a 690 00:42:11,960 --> 00:42:14,480 Speaker 1: situation where you have a group of dispossessed people who, 691 00:42:14,600 --> 00:42:18,040 Speaker 1: rather than locating where their dispossession comes from, they reached 692 00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:20,359 Speaker 1: back into a past that in many cases they did 693 00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:23,400 Speaker 1: not even live. They have no relationship to an aesthetics 694 00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:28,040 Speaker 1: and philosophy political systems, and they think, well, that was 695 00:42:28,080 --> 00:42:31,239 Speaker 1: obviously something that is upheld as brilliant something that is 696 00:42:31,280 --> 00:42:33,839 Speaker 1: upheld as good and just you know, like we can 697 00:42:33,840 --> 00:42:35,919 Speaker 1: talk as much about the ancient Greeks as we want, 698 00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:37,960 Speaker 1: but the number of things that we would find a 699 00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:42,080 Speaker 1: morally pernicious about those systems really do leave a bad 700 00:42:42,080 --> 00:42:43,680 Speaker 1: taste in the mouth if you take any of this 701 00:42:43,760 --> 00:42:47,920 Speaker 1: stuff seriously beyond the aesthetic component. And Mishima seems to 702 00:42:47,960 --> 00:42:51,640 Speaker 1: me was a philosophically inclined person. If you read his writings, 703 00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:54,239 Speaker 1: he's not a slouch in this regard. He may have 704 00:42:54,280 --> 00:42:56,840 Speaker 1: had open contempt for the life of the mind and 705 00:42:56,920 --> 00:42:59,160 Speaker 1: intellectuals and things of that nature, but that's because he 706 00:42:59,239 --> 00:43:02,400 Speaker 1: was one of them. Yeah, And that double standard that 707 00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:04,840 Speaker 1: he imposed on himself, like I said, it cleaves you 708 00:43:04,880 --> 00:43:07,000 Speaker 1: in half and you don't really have much of a 709 00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:11,000 Speaker 1: place to go. Yeah, because I think that's I think 710 00:43:11,040 --> 00:43:15,080 Speaker 1: that's tremendously a stupe zack. And when we look at 711 00:43:16,080 --> 00:43:21,960 Speaker 1: Mishima's legacy today, you know, um, I actually first learned 712 00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:25,480 Speaker 1: of Mishama not in college, but on my first trip 713 00:43:25,520 --> 00:43:29,920 Speaker 1: to the Agoya because some writer friends they're wanted to 714 00:43:29,960 --> 00:43:33,759 Speaker 1: talk about Mishima with me. And it after you hear 715 00:43:33,840 --> 00:43:36,360 Speaker 1: this story, folks, if you've never heard of this author. 716 00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:40,359 Speaker 1: It may sound surprising that this person is still so 717 00:43:40,880 --> 00:43:44,200 Speaker 1: highly lauded in the literary world and so widely read 718 00:43:44,320 --> 00:43:49,680 Speaker 1: in Japan and abroad, but he really is that talented. 719 00:43:50,160 --> 00:43:54,040 Speaker 1: You can be a talented person and still have torturous 720 00:43:54,080 --> 00:43:58,440 Speaker 1: things in your psychology, in your being with which you 721 00:43:58,520 --> 00:44:02,400 Speaker 1: wrestle throughout your life. UM. I feel that it is 722 00:44:02,600 --> 00:44:06,799 Speaker 1: incredibly important anytime we discussed the topic that touches on 723 00:44:07,280 --> 00:44:10,279 Speaker 1: the nature of self harm, it is incredibly important for 724 00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:12,919 Speaker 1: us to say that if you are a loved one 725 00:44:13,480 --> 00:44:18,720 Speaker 1: are dealing with challenging issues, do not hesitate to reach out. 726 00:44:18,920 --> 00:44:23,080 Speaker 1: There are tons of worthwhile free resources available to you. 727 00:44:23,280 --> 00:44:26,600 Speaker 1: Twenty four hours a day, seven days a week here 728 00:44:26,640 --> 00:44:31,799 Speaker 1: in the US. You can reach out to self harm 729 00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:36,640 Speaker 1: suicide crisis lifelines. UH. There is the old ten digit 730 00:44:36,680 --> 00:44:40,799 Speaker 1: one one eight zero zero to seven three talk. That's 731 00:44:40,800 --> 00:44:44,000 Speaker 1: one eight zero zero two seven three eight to five 732 00:44:44,160 --> 00:44:48,480 Speaker 1: five and thank goodness, as of this summer, you can 733 00:44:48,520 --> 00:44:52,600 Speaker 1: also simply dial nine eight eight UH speak with someone. 734 00:44:53,040 --> 00:44:55,600 Speaker 1: Your health and well being is more than worth it. 735 00:44:56,239 --> 00:44:58,720 Speaker 1: And that's just that's our disclaimer. We want to bookend 736 00:44:59,320 --> 00:45:03,799 Speaker 1: this series with but UH, honestly, you know this makes 737 00:45:03,800 --> 00:45:06,600 Speaker 1: you want to go back and reread more. Mishima Zach, 738 00:45:06,920 --> 00:45:09,799 Speaker 1: I don't know about the everybody else. Also the friend 739 00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:12,239 Speaker 1: that the mutual friend of ours, Zack and Ben. You 740 00:45:12,239 --> 00:45:14,760 Speaker 1: you've met him as well. Peyton Fisher, friend of the podcast, 741 00:45:14,760 --> 00:45:17,600 Speaker 1: loaned me this DVD when we were in high school 742 00:45:17,640 --> 00:45:20,200 Speaker 1: together and I totally slept on it. I never watched it, 743 00:45:20,239 --> 00:45:22,880 Speaker 1: and I returned it to him and I I copped 744 00:45:22,960 --> 00:45:25,560 Speaker 1: to that recently and he was just kind of a gas. 745 00:45:25,719 --> 00:45:28,040 Speaker 1: So I really do need to get this film, which is, 746 00:45:28,040 --> 00:45:31,239 Speaker 1: by the way, directed by Paul Strader, who wrote UH 747 00:45:31,320 --> 00:45:35,399 Speaker 1: Taxi Driver was a very important UM collaborator with UH. 748 00:45:35,480 --> 00:45:39,240 Speaker 1: Francis Ford Coppola as well UM scored by the incredible 749 00:45:39,239 --> 00:45:43,520 Speaker 1: Philip Glass. I believe George Lucas and Coppola had or 750 00:45:43,600 --> 00:45:46,879 Speaker 1: was it Scorsese had production credits in this. I think 751 00:45:46,880 --> 00:45:49,200 Speaker 1: all three had production credits. There was a there was 752 00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:53,160 Speaker 1: a concerted effort on both Lucas and Coppola specifically as 753 00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:55,920 Speaker 1: well throughout the eighties to bring Japanese or Japanese sort 754 00:45:55,960 --> 00:45:58,960 Speaker 1: of deemed films to the United States. Kagemusha was executive 755 00:45:58,960 --> 00:46:02,799 Speaker 1: produced by Lucas and co Blue as well, and with this, 756 00:46:03,400 --> 00:46:06,240 Speaker 1: I believe we we have to say thank you again, 757 00:46:06,800 --> 00:46:10,719 Speaker 1: doctor Zach. One night over sick down, a doctor appeared. 758 00:46:11,200 --> 00:46:17,000 Speaker 1: But this was no normal doctor. Who's there? It's Zack 759 00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:24,920 Speaker 1: Zach who the doctor named Zach and he's here to 760 00:46:25,440 --> 00:46:31,520 Speaker 1: bill your scraps just for Colledge pett is cat teaching 761 00:46:31,640 --> 00:46:39,520 Speaker 1: history books at stop. Let's go with other things. Yeah, 762 00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:48,000 Speaker 1: that'll work, Zack. We're trying that nickname on. We're gonna 763 00:46:48,000 --> 00:46:49,960 Speaker 1: take it around the street, take it, drive it down 764 00:46:49,960 --> 00:46:52,120 Speaker 1: the block, and see how it feels. Thank you again 765 00:46:52,480 --> 00:46:55,880 Speaker 1: so much. And as we said in part one, I 766 00:46:55,920 --> 00:46:59,440 Speaker 1: think you mentioned the snool. Uh. Very excited to have 767 00:46:59,600 --> 00:47:03,640 Speaker 1: you on the team. Uh. You bring such a fresh perspective. 768 00:47:04,360 --> 00:47:08,200 Speaker 1: Love the stories that you are finding. And I hope 769 00:47:08,239 --> 00:47:10,560 Speaker 1: you had a good time. We pulled you in for 770 00:47:10,600 --> 00:47:13,239 Speaker 1: your first We pulled you into deep water for your 771 00:47:13,280 --> 00:47:16,880 Speaker 1: first odd air appearance. Doc Zach. Are are you how 772 00:47:16,960 --> 00:47:20,400 Speaker 1: you feeling about coming back on in the future. No, absolutely, 773 00:47:20,800 --> 00:47:23,640 Speaker 1: probably for some lighter subject matter, I hope, but UH 774 00:47:24,640 --> 00:47:26,319 Speaker 1: do for sure. But I mean, it really is like 775 00:47:26,480 --> 00:47:29,160 Speaker 1: it's hard to just explain why this guy was so 776 00:47:29,200 --> 00:47:31,359 Speaker 1: important And just a couple of sentences which I think 777 00:47:31,360 --> 00:47:33,880 Speaker 1: maybe why I did sleep on that film because I 778 00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:36,319 Speaker 1: couldn't easily wrap my head around it. And I think 779 00:47:36,360 --> 00:47:38,879 Speaker 1: my younger stelf was maybe a little, uh, a little 780 00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:41,279 Speaker 1: less willing to take the plunge, you know, but it 781 00:47:41,360 --> 00:47:43,520 Speaker 1: really is. You know, you've got so much stuff out there. 782 00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:47,680 Speaker 1: This guy's work is available, the film that we're talking about, 783 00:47:47,719 --> 00:47:51,160 Speaker 1: But just what a guy that kind of controlled the 784 00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:53,399 Speaker 1: narrative of his life. It's such an interesting way because 785 00:47:53,400 --> 00:47:56,200 Speaker 1: I am still kind of the mind that this ending 786 00:47:56,719 --> 00:47:59,560 Speaker 1: was orchestrated, you know, to a degree, like he walked 787 00:47:59,560 --> 00:48:01,359 Speaker 1: in there and no going full well what was going 788 00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:05,400 Speaker 1: to happen? And to his credit, you know, it's still 789 00:48:05,480 --> 00:48:08,680 Speaker 1: the object of speculation. We're still reading him. We're still 790 00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:11,400 Speaker 1: watching Schrader's film, which I can't stress enough is is 791 00:48:11,480 --> 00:48:16,000 Speaker 1: gorgeous both formally narratively thematically um My in my mind, 792 00:48:16,160 --> 00:48:19,520 Speaker 1: Schrader's best film. Um certainly worth a watch on the 793 00:48:19,520 --> 00:48:22,360 Speaker 1: Criterion channel if you have that um and read the 794 00:48:22,400 --> 00:48:24,160 Speaker 1: sound or read the sound the waves if you want 795 00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:26,680 Speaker 1: something a bit more traditional and less queasy, But if 796 00:48:26,719 --> 00:48:29,480 Speaker 1: you really want to dive deep with Mishima, highly suggest 797 00:48:29,480 --> 00:48:31,360 Speaker 1: the Temple of the Golden Pavilion, which is one of 798 00:48:31,400 --> 00:48:37,120 Speaker 1: the most stark depictions of mental disturbance, um neurosis and 799 00:48:37,480 --> 00:48:41,239 Speaker 1: sort of spiritual awakening that I have ever read. Well 800 00:48:41,280 --> 00:48:45,000 Speaker 1: written books are not always happy books, folks, So let 801 00:48:45,040 --> 00:48:50,120 Speaker 1: the let the reader be aware. But do do also 802 00:48:50,200 --> 00:48:54,200 Speaker 1: check out Maschuma's work if you haven't yet. In the meantime, 803 00:48:54,200 --> 00:48:56,920 Speaker 1: we'd also love to hear from you, fellow Ridiculous Historians, 804 00:48:57,120 --> 00:49:01,719 Speaker 1: who were some other authors that you feel have a 805 00:49:01,840 --> 00:49:07,319 Speaker 1: body of, you know, canonical literature as well as a 806 00:49:07,440 --> 00:49:11,160 Speaker 1: personal life outside of literature that many people may not 807 00:49:11,239 --> 00:49:13,520 Speaker 1: be aware of. We'd love to hear your suggestions. You 808 00:49:13,600 --> 00:49:17,640 Speaker 1: can find us on Facebook where we're Ridiculous Historians. We're 809 00:49:17,640 --> 00:49:22,040 Speaker 1: still working on the vision board from our very first episodes. 810 00:49:22,120 --> 00:49:24,520 Speaker 1: I don't think we got the passwords in the MySpace yet. 811 00:49:24,719 --> 00:49:26,959 Speaker 1: No no, no, no, it's okay, it's okay, we were 812 00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:28,400 Speaker 1: working on it. We'll get right back to you on that. 813 00:49:28,680 --> 00:49:32,320 Speaker 1: Huge thanks to Zach Williams of course, Alex Williams, uh, 814 00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:35,760 Speaker 1: Max Williams, all the Williams, the Williams Is, the Williams Williams. 815 00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:41,239 Speaker 1: Yeah sure, um, thanks Chris for us. Jodis here in Spirit, Eves, 816 00:49:41,320 --> 00:49:45,040 Speaker 1: Jeff co Jonathan Strickland, all the hits. Thanks to you, Ben, 817 00:49:45,480 --> 00:49:48,080 Speaker 1: This is a great, great conversation. Thanks to you knowl. 818 00:49:48,880 --> 00:49:58,120 Speaker 1: We'll see you next time. Books. For more podcasts, form 819 00:49:58,120 --> 00:50:00,840 Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, 820 00:50:00,960 --> 00:50:03,120 Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.