Yukio Mishima

javi2541997

Left-wing and right-wing principles are no longer an effective axis in our era. The Russian and Afghanistan conflicts are a good example of it. I think it is time to start a new beginning according to our values. Politicians have corrupted our cities, neighborhoods, villages, countries… thus, the groups or communities of citizens which always lived alone, isolated from globalisation. After a deep reasoning I cannot see the effectiveness of NATO, the European Commission or my local government. They are supposed to be there to defend our interests in the democratic world but they end up doing the opposite.

Do not worry, I have the solution that has always been there since 1968: Tatenokai.

Background: Tatenokai (楯の会, 楯の會) or Shield Society was a private militia in Japan dedicated to traditional Japanese values and veneration of the Emperor. It was founded and led by author Yukio Mishima. Along with outdoor activities, the members, who joined voluntarily, were subjected to rigorous physical training that included kendo and long-distance running. In an unusual move, the Tatenokai was granted the right to train with the nation's armed forces, the Japan Self-Defense Forces. The number of Tatenokai members later increased to 100. Some of the members had graduated from university and were employed, while some were already working adults when they enlisted.

"Where has the spirit of the samurai gone?" On 25 November 1970, Mishima and four members of the Tatenokai—Masakatsu Morita, Masahiro Ogawa, Masayoshi Koga, and Hiroyasu Koga, —used a pretext to visit the commandant Kanetoshi Mashita of Camp Ichigaya, a military base in central Tokyo and the headquarters of the Eastern Command of the Japan Self-Defense Forces. Inside, they barricaded the office and tied the commandant to his chair. Mishima wore a white hachimaki headband with a red hinomaru circle in the center bearing the kanji for "To be reborn seven times to serve the country" (七生報國, Shichishō hōkoku), which was a reference to the last words of Kusunoki Masasue, the younger brother of the 14th century imperial loyalist samurai Kusunoki Masashige as the two brothers died fighting to defend the Emperor.
In his final written appeal that Morita and Ogawa scattered copies of from the balcony, Mishima expressed his dissatisfaction with the half-baked nature of the JSDF:

It is self-evident that the United States would not be pleased with a true Japanese volunteer army protecting the land of Japan. Japan lost its spiritual tradition, and materialism infested instead. Japan is under the curse of a Green Snake now. The Green Snake bites the Japanese chest. There is no way to escape this curse. — Yukio Mishima

Mishima then committed seppuku. This coup attempt is called The Mishima Incident (三島事件, Mishima jiken) in Japan.

Conclusion: If we do not have public figures who would sacrifice themselves in order to defend our land, politics (both left and right) are not long relatable. Political figures were representatives of our traditions back then. But now they are kidnapped by money and sinful practices. They do not have honour nor ethics. It looks like they do not even assume responsibilities. They [politicians] do not care about us and our identity problem.
They are so coward that they would not be brave enough to sacrifice themselves to save the country.

ChatteringMonkey

Conclusion: If we do not have public figures who would sacrifice themselves in order to defend our land, politics (both left and right) are not long relatable. Political figures were representatives of our traditions back then. But now they are kidnapped by money and sinful practices. They do not have honour nor ethics. It looks like they do not even assume responsibilities. They [politicians] do not care about us and our identity problem.
They are so coward that they would not be brave enough to sacrifice themselves to save the country. — javi2541997

I think even this is merely a symptom and not the 'cause'. An individual is also mostly a product of the society they grow up in, more than the other way around at the very least. Or put in other words you tend to get these kinds of politicians because there is already something rotten in society.

What is missing after dissolution of traditional structures in the past centuries is an idea of 'societal good', or even 'ecological good' that transcends individuals. This idea of a hierarchy of values should be evident, we simply cannot survive as individuals, or at least not flourish, if society collapses or if the biosphere dies for instance... we depend on the functioning of larger structures.

A society needs to venerate something, put something at the center of it's valuations, that is larger than a mere sum of individuals to function properly. The problem is not one of individual character, i.e. that these people are not brave enough to sacrifice themselves, the problem is that the idea that one should sacrifice something for the greater good has become laughable in current societies.

Maw

Whenever someone presents a political philosophy that they purport to be neither left-wing or right-wing it's always just rephrased right-wing sentiments; as was the case with Mishima, who was definitely right-wing.

Streetlight

Whenever someone presents a political philosophy that they purport to be neither left-wing or right-wing it's always just rephrased right-wing sentiments; as was the case with Mishima, who was definitely right-wing. — Maw

:up: Mishima was two steps away from a reworked "fascism with Japanese characteristics". When popular resentment is not rooted in class politics, it always ends up tending toward this kind of reactionary nationalist identitarianism. If anything Mishima was a warning about what is happening exactly right now all across the world: a drastic pitch to the right as societies disoriented by the ruination of capitalism desperately search for something to give their lives meaning.

180 Proof

↪Streetlight

↪Maw

:100:

javi2541997

fascism with Japanese characteristics" — Streetlight

Fascism was an Italian movement for the population of Italy. Thus, an European revolution against socialism. But you have to keep in mind that Mishima was searching a way to escape from Weatern topics. I think Mishima was original in they way he has founded a group or militia. Please do not call him just "fascist" because he wanted to honour their Japanese heritage and traditions.

I do not even understand when you say fascism with "Japanese characteristics"... was Francisco Franco a fascist with "Spanish characteristics?"...

javi2541997

a drastic pitch to the right as societies disoriented by the ruination of capitalism desperately search for something to give their lives meaning. — Streetlight

Isn't this a right path to choose to?

javi2541997

the problem is that the idea that one should sacrifice something for the greater good has become laughable in current societies — ChatteringMonkey

:100: :up:

Streetlight

I do not even understand when you say fascism with "Japanese characteristics"... was Francisco Franco a fascist with "Spanish characteristics?"... — javi2541997

It's an allusion to the idea of "capitalism with Chinese characteristics" that sometimes used in reference to China. And yes, Mishima was looking to escape from the upheavals of the West by means of a regression into the past. It so happens that the withdrawal into 'tradition' always takes place at the expense of living, breathing people. It is usually accompanied by mass death. It is no accident that Mishima's suicide was followed soon after by a military coup that unleashed some of the worst horrors the Earth has ever seen in the pacific theatre of WWII.

Isn't this a right path to choose to? — javi2541997

There is literally nothing worse. A regression to feudalism without even the minimally positive aspects of capitalism.

javi2541997

There is literally nothing worse. A regression to feudalism without even the minimally positive aspects of capitalism. — Streetlight

But I never spoke about feudalism either capitalism. I think it is a bad move to always mix social challenges with economy. For example: if I am a traditionalist it means that I want to reinforce my roots but it is not necessarily being connected to capitalism or "markets"
This is why Mishima was right. The nations ended up being kidnapped by markets and money.
Who cares about the GDP if I do not know what is the real value of being born in Spain, Japan, USA UK, etc...?

Streetlight

Who cares about the GDP if I do not know what is the real value of being born in Spain, Japan, USA UK, etc...? — javi2541997

There is no real value in being born anywhere in particular. There is only the life you make with the people around you. "The economy" is just the ways in which we reproduce our societies across time. Being kidnapped by markets or money is no different than being kidnapped by tradition, which in some cases far worse because of the total caprice and arbitrariness of so-called 'traditions' - which are all invented and reinvented in real time anyway.

javi2541997

↪Streetlight

What I have tried to stand is that both values and traditions should not be along with politicians and markets because for me those are invaluables.

jorndoe

dedicated to traditional Japanese values — javi2541997

lost its spiritual tradition — javi2541997

Political figures were representatives of our traditions back then — javi2541997

Ethics and traditions aren't the same things, though.
Shouldn't decision-makers do the right thing regardless of traditions, perhaps even in spite of traditions as the case may be...?

javi2541997

Shouldn't decision-makers do the right thing regardless of traditions, perhaps even in spite of traditions as the case may be...? — jorndoe

How can you make the right decisions if you do not respect your traditions and values firstly?
We end up in a constant contradiction here

jorndoe

↪javi2541997

, the problem would consist in not skipping a tradition, despite that being the right thing to do in some situation.
Shouldn't be hard to exemplify; may not apply to all traditions of course, maybe someone has a tradition that just says "do the right thing"?
Ethics ≠ traditions.

ssu

↪javi2541997

I think this bizarre incident of Yukio Mishima's actions is a perfect example how some conservatives are totally blind to reality and see cultural decadence and erosion of values when societies and manners in them change. They are fixated in the past and if the present doesn't look like the past, they think all is lost. It's a common view, although Mishima went to the extreme.

If I remember correctly (so correct me if I'm wrong), Mishima did seppuku after the JSDF soldiers, that he thought he would inspired to join him, simply mocked and laughed at him. And what else was he than a eccentric lunatic? The real failure is to think that those JSDF soldiers weren't patriotic or didn't hold Japanese heritage in high value. Likely many of the officers and NCOs in the JSDF and earlier in the National Police Reserve were WW2 veterans, just like those in the new Bundeswehr in Germany. But it wasn't the Imperial Japan of before anymore.

Mishima actually hadn't served in the Imperial Armed Forces of Japan and hence didn't participate in WW2, an experience that usually would make people see the realities of those ideals Mishima so much upheld. Now the dismissal on medical grounds gave him an inferiority complex.

ChatteringMonkey

↪jorndoe

Ethics ≠ traditions. — jorndoe

I guess this is where the divide in views springs from, for the moral constructivist, the traditions, the mores (customs) actually are the ethics and morals. In this view, if you dissolve these traditions for whatever reason, you have nothing left, or rather they get constructed in other unconscious and perhaps unfortunate ways, like say by corporate advertising. This is not to say that you can't critique traditions if you hold a constructivist view, but that the critique will necessarily be formulated from within the constructed system, immanent, and not by holding it up to some absolute moral standard that exist outside of time or context, transcendent (because that simply is nonsense in that view).

ssu

↪ChatteringMonkey

Perhaps needless to say, but for Japan after the devastating and utter defeat in WW2, there genuinely was a perfect reason for the whole country collectively to rethink just what traditions are really worth wile to uphold in the new situation. The Samurai mentality and Bushido wouldn't be the best ethical traditions to build the post-war Japan.

Ethics can obviously change, hence ethics ≠ traditions.

javi2541997

↪ssu

Mishima did not serve in the Japanese forces because he was young (around 19 and 20 years) and an intellectual ready to fulfil his life with literature. I guess his disappointment with modern Japanese society has a lot of points to consider of.
When Japan loses WWII starts a period of lack of confidence on "Japanese values" because they noticed that they weren't good enough to win the war. Since 1945, the new Japanese citizens started to be more Westerly. They use smoking instead kimono. The women are independent instead of being surrounded by Men. Samurai are no longer respectful and Japan became an economical potency without their roots and values.
In this precisely moment Mishima wonders if Japan would disappear if they give up their values and history because the modern society doesn't seem to look like the previous one of WWII. He did his best to re-establish the respect to the emperor and make Japan a country of samurai not entrepreneurs.
When he perceived that nobody didn't care that much as expected he ended his life with seppuku.
But it is important to highlight that for Mishima (and other Japanese artists) suicide is a beautiful ending. It is not perceived as bad as Westerns.

The Japanese have always been a people with a severe awareness of death. But the Japanese concept of death is pure and clear, and in that sense it is different from death as something disgusting and terrible as it is perceived by Westerners. — Yukio Mishima

javi2541997

The Samurai mentality and Bushido wouldn't be the best ethical traditions to build the post-war Japan.

The Western materialistic sense of living neither!

Agent Smith

It's lamentable that some of us havta be sacrificial lambs in order to get anything done. This is a waste of valuable (human) resource in my humble opinion. It saddens me that only death motivates us to make the necessary changes to improve our lot. No wonder God had to kill his own son, Jesus; it starts to make sense now, oui? It's a pity that we have to be shocked into action! Frankensteinian, too Frankensteinian for comfort.

ChatteringMonkey

Ethics can obviously change, hence ethics ≠ traditions. — ssu

But traditions do change, which is why ethics change.

I'm a bit confused because usually the argument against moral constructivism is something like
1. slavery used to be accepted by certain ancient traditions
2. slavery is obviously wrong
3. therefor tradition cannot be the thing that determines ethics and morals.

The argument against tradition as morality is typically one in which morality is seen out of it's historical context (slavery is morally bad regardless, always, everywhere), and therefor contrary to what you seem to be saying, 'unchangeble' or absolute.

I don't see ethics changing as a problem for moral contructivism.... it's rather a problem for moral realists, absolutists, universalists etc.

ssu

The argument against tradition as morality is typically one in which morality is seen out of it's historical context (slavery is morally bad regardless, always, everywhere), and therefor contrary to what you seem to be saying, 'unchangeble' or absolute. — ChatteringMonkey

I'm not saying that. Both can change.

What I'm saying is that they aren't so interdependent as to say ethics = tradition. Ethics can change due to events, public and political debate about ethical issues and changes in the society. That doesn't mean that ethics are linked to traditions of the culture and society.

ChatteringMonkey

What I'm saying is that they aren't so interdependent as to say ethics = tradition. Ethics can change due to events, public and political debate about ethical issues and changes in the society. That doesn't mean that ethics are linked to traditions of the culture and society. — ssu

I'm not sure you're making a real distinction there, or what that distinction would be exactly? Isn't something that changes due to events, public and political debate, a kind of tradition, something that is socially constructed? Moral constructivism is not saying all tradition is ethics either, but that what is ethical or moral is determined by societal traditions... those traditions would be larger than merely ethics or morals strictu sensu, but do include them. So maybe we don't really disagree.

jorndoe

↪ChatteringMonkey

, I thought it was fairly obvious that ethics ≠ traditions, but maybe not?
Would just take some examples to show.

Shouldn't decision-makers do the right thing regardless of traditions, perhaps even in spite of traditions as the case may be...?

the problem would consist in not skipping a tradition, despite that being the right thing to do in some situation

Ethics are more bound to autonomous moral agents, doing right in whatever given situation regardless of traditions; traditions are more bound to culture, following whatever has been done before regardless of doing what's right.
Sure, they may overlap, yet they're not the same.

ChatteringMonkey

Ethics are more bound to autonomous moral agents, doing right in whatever given situation regardless of traditions; traditions are more bound to culture, following whatever has been done before regardless of doing what's right. — jorndoe

Yeah I think people, or maybe better western philosophy since Socrates, are confused about there being something right regardless of context. I don't think the idea makes much sense without God, which is why western philosophy has been struggling with moral foundations ever since.

You obviously have different ideas and opinions within traditions, but then you are not evaluating tradition to some outside fixed moral standard, but to just another strand within said tradition.

The idea of autonomous moral agents acting morally regardless of traditions is also a bit of a misguided idea I think. We don't pop into existence as blank adult moral agents, but are gradually educated in certain moral ideas given by our cultures and traditions. Moral intuitions are also formed by the traditions we grow up in, not some pristine moral judge we can rely on the find moral good and bad without context.

There is nothing outside. People seem to have trouble accepting that.

jorndoe

↪ChatteringMonkey

, it doesn't take vacuum for ...

the problem would consist in not skipping a tradition, despite that being the right thing to do in some situation

Yep, we should cultivate and nurture moral awareness → autonomous moral agency. :up:
Old comment.
Morals aren't reducible to traditions, they're not identical (you can find counter-examples).
It's on us, always was; not just a walk in the park; in some given situation you might have to skip a tradition to do the right thing.

Shouldn't decision-makers do the right thing regardless of traditions, perhaps even in spite of traditions as the case may be...?

Pawing off morals to something else is problematic; actually it's almost like a kind of moral blindness.

(EDITED words and such)

ChatteringMonkey

↪jorndoe

You didn't really address the point I was making. We can use our judgement when deciding on how to act, we can be more aware or sensitive to moral issues, etc... this is all fine. I'm saying, when making these judgement, the values and ideas you use come from somewhere. It's not God, it's not pure reason and it's not intuition or some pristine awareness of right or wrong... it's traditions and culture in the broadest sense.

Why does this matter? Because if you let tradition or culture turn to shit, you will end up a lot of people using shit ideas when making these moral judgement. But it's all fine, let's just tell that gen Z kid who grew up on a diet of internet adds, instagram posts and Tiktok vids to cultivate and nurture some moral awareness on his own.

jorndoe

come from — ChatteringMonkey

autonomous moral agents.

Surely we're influenced by culture, traditions, etc.
Yet, we can't derive what we ought to do from traditions.

It's on us, always was

Oh wait, you confirmed, sort of:

if you let tradition or culture turn to shit, you will end up a lot of people using shit ideas when making these moral judgement — ChatteringMonkey

(EDITED)

ssu

Isn't something that changes due to events, public and political debate, a kind of tradition — ChatteringMonkey

Not in my view:

tradition = the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or the fact of being passed on in this way.
=an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior (such as a religious practice or a social custom)

Moral constructivism is not saying all tradition is ethics either, but that what is ethical or moral is determined by societal traditions... those traditions would be larger than merely ethics or morals strictu sensu, but do include them. So maybe we don't really disagree. — ChatteringMonkey

The ethics that we share with our ancestors hundreds of years ago is surely what we would now call a tradition (cultural or religious etc). Yet we can notice that even in our (short?) lifetimes nuances have changed in what is ethical. And those changes we cannot say are from a tradition. So I don't think we have a real disagreement here.

ChatteringMonkey

And those changes we cannot say are from a tradition. — ssu

I think they are ssu. This will no doubt be a contentious point, but I'd say the whole recent 'woke' flare is a direct continuation of the Christian tradition with its focus on suffering, victim-hood, the individual etc... Of course those taken in by these morals will claim to have some a-historical objective source for them, but that's par for the course... it's always more convincing to have morals spring from the fabric of reality itself than to acknowledge that they are something we create as we go.

Yukio Mishima

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