https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/74b0/a50e0844e901c70a43f51a236571a192e555.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi52YmwjpbgAhWlxYMKHZudAQ4QFjAXegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw3PcX9p_lmZHVwXvARZQLZI
K. Yamamoto
Kyushu Institute of Design, Fukuoka, Japan
ABSTRACT
After WWII, ultra-nationalism, which was the leading ideology of wartime Japan, seemed to have lost its power to inspire the Japanese. In the 1960s, when the Japanese began to enjoy economic prosperity, Yukio Mishima, deploring that the Japanese were losing the traditional spirit and morality of the nation, was one of those citizens who felt a strong nostalgia for wartime Japan. In an attempt to revive the spiritual exaltation of wartime Japan, Mishima took radical action as an ultra-nationalist, and killed himself by Hara-kiri. Mishima’s ethical concepts, which center on the ethos of warriors who dedicate themselves to the defense of their commune, have structural similarities to the ethical structure of the Kanun, which may be called the ethics of »blood«. Mishima’s theory of ultra-nationalism has a paradoxical logic, which seems to be related to the ethical concepts of a society without state power.Introduction
The Japanese writer, Yukio Mishima committed suicide in 1970 at the headquarters of the Japan Self-Defense Force, insisting that the Japanese should abrogate the constitution promulgated after WWII under the guidance of the Allied Supreme Headquarters and have a new constitution made by the Japanese themselves.His suicide with one of his young comrades by Hara-kiri was a shock to the Japanese because he was a well-known writer of Romanticism and the Japanese forgot about the ritual of Hara-kiri after
WWII. Why Mishima committed suicide with such an astonishing action has been an enigma to the Japanese for over 30 years, though many previously unknown facts about his life have since been re-
vealed, and many people have analyzed the psychological background of his suicide. The key words of Mishima, who had been actively involved in the political movement for several years before his
death, comprise such wide categories as the Emperor, bushido (the code of warriors), bodybuilding, Self-Defense Force and the Shield Society (a phalanx of warriors to defend the Emperor) that it is dif-
ficult for the Japanese to understand what he really meant with these words. When I read »The Defense of Culture«, which explains why Mishima and his comrades should die in paramilitary action defending the Emperor, I noted the structural similarities between the ethics of the Kanun and his theory of ultra-nationalism. An analysis of Mishima’s ultra-nationalism, in comparison with the
ethical structure of the Kanun, led to discernment of his ethical concepts, which seem to have their origins in the value system of a society without state power.
In the present paper, I shall clarify the ethical concepts of Yukio Mishima as an ultra-nationalist. Such clarification may probe useful for analysis of the emotional basis of ethnic nationalism in other areas
of the world. Mishima’s theory of ulra-nationalism Mishima discusses his theory of ultra-nationalism in several essays. In »Counter-revolutionary Manifesto«1 for which, he says, he takes responsibility
though he does not take responsibility for his literature, he clearly indicates that the purpose of his radical action is to defend the Emperor. Counter-revolutionary Manifesto In the manifesto, Mishima declares that what he defends is the culture, history, and tradition of Japan, which is represented by »the form« called the Emperor. He, who embodies clarity, gaiety, sincerity, and the high morality of Japan, who represents the beauty of the Japanese tradition, stands up from the vantage point of the strong to fight communists once and for all, who seek to shatter the national polity of Japan. The national polity of Japan is epitomized by the imperial system, and freedom of speech, through which a true figure of the Emperor should spontaneously emerge, is included in it. The Japanese involved in the counter-revolutionary action have the same ethos as that of the Kamikaze pilots, who died in suicide bomb attacks during WWII with the belief that other Japanese would follow their heroic action. The presence and the prospect of these kind of people, who do not mind whether their action is effective or not, cannot be a beacon to a happy future and stand in opposition to all ideas which im-
ply a brilliant future for human beings. The battle to defend the Emperor does not defend the future of the people, but defends the fundamentals, which enable Japanese society to exist, although people
are unaware of these. Violence is not wrong in itself. Mishima says that the purpose for which violence is wielded determines whether it is right or wrong.
In »The Defense of Culture«1, Mishima elucidates his theory of the cultural commune of the Japanese, and advocates that »the form« of the cultural commune be defended at all costs.
The Defense of Culture Mishima says that the essence of culture is »the form«, which may be metaphorically described as a crystal through which we can see the spirit of a nation.
»The form«, which inspires the activity of a creative person, represents the continuity of the cultural life of the nation, which includes not only works of art, but deeds of the people and »the form« of the deeds.
The continuity of a nation’s cultural life, in other words, the continuity of »the form« is antithetical to the dialectical concepts of progress and development. Japan is one of the cultural communes with »the form« of its own. According to Mishima, »the form« of Japanese culture is the Emperor, whose rituals guarantee its own temporal continuity. The Emperor, who stands for the wholeness of the
cultural commune, is qualified to succeed to the throne because he has a tie of »blood« with his ancestors. Upon ascending the throne, the Emperor obtains divinity in the Great Food Offering Ritual
in which he plays the role of a host to receive the ancestor-god as a guest. He reconfirms and strengthens his divinity in the ritual of the Festival for the New Tasting every year. Every succeeding Emperor is deemed to be the original or a copy of the original Emperor. The successive repetition of »blood« in the imperial family is deemed to be an endless replay of the original, primordial cultural events.
Mishima assumes that the cultural commune of the Japanese has developed on the basis of a consanguine relationship with the people; that is, it is a sort of huge extended family, whose supreme chief is the Emperor. The existence of the cultural commune of the Japanese has an ethical value, because it is a commune of consanguinity, which has its origin in the ancient, divine obscurity of the universe.
In the cultural commune of the Japanese, the Emperor is the only source from which the values and morals of the Japanese flow, and through whom we can access every detail of the Japanese culture.
The esthetic value of the Japanese has
been engendered in the mimesis of the
imperial culture, which is pedestrian as
well as noble. The Emperor, who repre-
sents classicism and stands in opposition
to creativeness, is the source of power
which inspires both esthetic and ethical
emotions among the Japanese. The Em-
peror, who symbolizes order and ethics,
sometimes becomes the fountain from
which rebellions and revolutions origi-
nate. Because the aegis of the Emperor
covers both order and disorder, the Em-
peror is considered to represent the
wholeness of the cultural commune.
If the existence of the Emperor is
threatened by an enemy within or with-
out, the Japanese must take up arms to
defend the Emperor. The fight to defend
the Emperor might be a fierce, bloody one
in which the people do not hesitate to liq-
uidate the enemy. When a Japanese dies
in battle, death extinguishes his ego and
enables him to attain oneness with the
Emperor-god, through which he is eter-
nalized. It may be said that he is reborn,
because he who dedicates himself to the
Emperor and dies for him coalesces into
the eternal life of the commune. The acts
to defend the Emperor, which succeeding
generations carry out, guarantee the con-
tinuity of the commune, and the death of
generations while defending the Emperor
guarantees the recurrent momentum of
the commune. The Japanese act to defend
the Emperor with an instinctive feeling
for the continuity of life, which may be
analogous to the biological laws of life.
After WWII, the tie between the state
and the kinship system was cut. The so-
cial as well as constitutional changes im-
posed on Japan by the Allied Supreme
Headquarters led to the degeneration of
Japanese culture and society. It brought
the Japanese a boring peace and an in-
sipid culture like culture seen in a mu-
seum. When Japanese see that their cul-
ture is in a shameful, terrible state, they
are compelled to stand up to restore its
dignity and strive to regenerate it. To
achieve this end, the Japanese must dedi-
cate themselves to battle and die in it,
which ensures the restoration of the Em-
peror’s honor and dignity. Thus, the ho-
nor of the cultural commune of the Japa-
nese will be restored.
In »The Logic of Moral Revolution«1,
Mishima admires the young officers of
the February 26th Incident, the largest
military uprising in modern Japan,
which occurred in 1936. The passion and
sincerity of these men, who regarded the
Emperor as a god and dedicated themselves to him, galvanized Mishima to
take radical action.
The Logic of Moral Revolution
The young officers of the Imperial Jap-
anese Army, resenting the corruption of
politicians, officials, and entrepreneurs,
who showed little sympathy or ability to
deal with the plight of the poor peasants
hit by catastrophic weather in northern
Japan, attacked the high officials of the
government with 1400 foot soldiers and
took control of the central area of Tokyo
in an attempt to make the Emperor take
the helm of Japan. Mishima regards the
uprising as a revolutionary action of high
morality, intended to make the young of-
ficers get involved in the ultimate purity
of the imperial system. However, these of-
ficers were defeated because the Em-
peror, angry with those who had killed
his close advisors, refused to accept their
demands and gave a military order to
crush the uprising immediately. The
young officers, finding that the Empe-
ror-god was outraged, asked the Emperor
to send an emissary to oversee them kill
themselves honorably. The Emperor re-
fused to grant them an honorable death.
The young officers were arrested and shot
to death after a secret military tribunal.
According to Mishima, the young offi-
cers were destined for defeat because
they had to wait for the Emperor-god to
accept their demands. They could not at-
tack the Emperor and the imperial sys-
tem because they were inspired to take
action by »the form« called the Emperor.
They could do nothing but wait patiently
for the Emperor to recognize their selfless
devotion to him. This is why a revolution
inspired by »the form« is doomed to fail-
ure. However, Mishima says that the
young officers experienced a momentary
bliss when they believed, though vainly,
that their dreams had been fulfilled.
When an uprising fails, the instigators
must kill themselves immediately be-
cause they have committed the sin of dis-
loyalty to the Emperor-god. Then the
souls of the dead who remain loyal to the
Emperor, uniting with the Emperor-god,
achieve eternity and bliss.
In »Sun and Steel«2, Mishima ana-
lyzes his psychological and philosophical
background, which constantly seduces
him to choose an early death by suicide.
He says that he experienced the bliss of
oneness with the commune at the end of
WWII when most of the Japanese were
willingly prepared to die in battle. He
longed to repeat this after WWII.
Sun and Steel
Mishima confesses that during boy-
hood, he lived in a world of literature un-
der the presupposition that he did not
have a body, did not belong to reality of
the society, and did not have any inten-
tion to do any meaningful acts. During
the war, he, who was absorbed in listen-
ing to his own inner voice, hated the sun,
which he regarded as the symbol of honor
and glory. However, one day, prodigiously
showered by summer sunlight shortly af-
ter WWII, he felt that in reality he must
have belonged to the category of people
who admire the sun, and he then decided
to increase the amount of his muscle by
bodybuilding, which would perhaps qual-
ify him as a sun worshiper.
When Mishima had developed the
musculature of his body, he found that his
physical strength grounded his sense of
existence and transformed it into a sense
of power. He realized that the sense that
power needed an opponent, one who en-
ables it to be power, was the fundamental
relationship between the world and us. In
this regard, we need the world. When he
was practicing Kendo (Japanese fencing),
he felt that the thing lurking beyond his
bamboo sword was the existence or the
essence of existence, which has features
opposite to literature. What appeared
abruptly before his eyes was existence it self; that is, an opponent, who refuses to
be depicted in words. Mishima and the
opponent exist in the same world wherein
they see each other without using the
imagination. The opponent can never be
an idea, but a reality which seeks to
strike a blow. He regards the opponent as
death itself. Mishima says that he saw
the sun of death beyond the pain which
his body felt when his opponent hit him.
Mishima’s power, which is fighting, run-
ning and crying within him, asks him to
perform an action which is so pure that it
is beyond imagination. The sun of death
ensnares him, and he is incessantly led to
his death.
Mishima’s relentless thirst to kill him-
self led him to bushido and death by
Hara-kiri carried out in accordance with
the procedure of bushido, which made it
possible for him to die as a heroic warrior.
What makes it different between a ro-
mantic death and a decadent death is the
presence or absence of a sense of honor
which makes death able to be seen, the
presence of a tragic situation and the
beauty of the body of a dying man. Mi-
shima wanted a romantic death, which
could only occur in a tragic moment when
everyday imaginings concerning death
and danger and world destruction were
transformed into duty. The place where
Mishima feels happiness is the tragic
world, wherein he can achieve oneness
with the commune without using words
of literature. He deplores having lost a
chance to die along with the Kamikaze pi-
lots, who attained blissful death in the
tragic situation of war, when the abrupt
cessation of the war in 1945 saved him.
After WWII Mishima trained his body
so that he could carry out a beautiful, he-
roic death. When he had obtained physi-
cal power, the will to fight and the skill to
battle, he decided to end his life with a
radical action, accompanied by words of
no individuality, which might exert a re-
ally monumental power. In order to
achieve a heroic death, he needed a pha-
lanx of warriors who would take an oath
to die together in battle. When he dies
with the phalanx of warriors, he is able to
glimpse the sacred world of the gods with
his last breath.
Ethical concepts of Mishima as an
ultra-nationalist
Mishima’s logic of ultra-nationalism
described above leads us to his ethical
concepts, as follows.
Japan is a cultural commune, founded
on the basis of the kinship system. It is
considered to be a huge kin group into
which relatively small kin groups, such
as extended families, coalesced. Japan,
which is an ethical entity, is represented
by »the form« called the Emperor, who ob-
tains divinity by the Great Food Offering
Ritual upon ascending the throne and
renovates it in the ritual of the Festival
for the New Tasting every year. The ritu-
als, which the Emperors have repeatedly
performed since ancient times, guarantee
the temporal continuity of the commune.
The cultural commune of the Japanese,
which looks as though it is covered by a
dome called »the Emperor«, is a space of
freedom, in which even some kinds of an-
archy may be accepted.
As long as the cultural commune of
the Japanese exists with an ethical value,
it has an obligation to continue to exist in
the world. If its existence is threatened,
the warriors of the commune must come
to its defense. Therefore, it has the ethos
of a warrior’s commune, which admires
acts of valor and self-sacrifice. A warrior,
who dies in battle defending the com-
mune, can transcend himself and be
united with the Emperor, who is a su-
preme-priest of the commune as well as a
divine entity representing the continuity
of communal life. Violence in defense of
the commune is regarded as an ethical force, because the commune is an ethical
entity.
Defending the commune with one’s
own flesh and blood is an act of honor and
pride for warriors. Insofar as fighting the
enemy in defense of the commune is
deemed an ethical act, killing the enemy
is also an ethical act, though such action
can lead to anarchy. The act of defending
the commune, which must be repeated as
long as it exists, is antithetical to the dia-
lectics. The battle proceeds as a tragedy
because it is an action to defend the ethi-
cal entity.
Ethical structure of the Kanun
The comparison of Mishima’s ethical
concepts with the ethical structure of the
Kanun reveals the essential meaning of
his beliefs. The ethical structure of the
Kanun will be briefly discussed below.
The Kanun is a customary code which
keeps social order in the tribal society of
northern Albania. The Kanun dictates
that if 1) a person breaks an oath or a
besa, 2) a person injures or kills a guest,
3) a person kills a member of another kin
group, 4) a person dishonors a member of
another kin group, the offended party
must take revenge on the offending party.
The Kanun allows a murder which hap-
pened within a shpi (family) to be re-
solved in it with some arbitrariness. Acts
of revenge are regulated by the Kanun
whose ethical structure is epitomized as
follows: 1) a guest is a kind of god or a
messenger of the gods, 2) commensality
of a host with the guest-god is a ritual by
which the host makes communion with
the guest-god, 3) the host becomes divine
through commensality with the guest-god
and by receiving a blessing uttered by the
guest-god, 4) the oath, besa, honor and
blood of a person (host) who obtains di-
vinity from the guest-god are equivalent
to those of the gods, 5) when a person
loses this divinity for himself or others by
committing sacrilegious acts, such as
breaking an oath, injuring a guest, etc.,
the damaged divinity must be neutral-
ized by offering the blood of the offender
or a member of his kin group to soothe the
anger of the furious gods3.
The people in northern Albania live in
a society, which consists of patrilineally
organized kin groups called shpi (family),
vllazni (brotherhood) and fis (clan). In
this society, where kinship systems are of
great importance, an individual lives as a
member of a kin group. His individual
rights and freedom of will are rather re-
stricted, and each individual is expected
to meet the obligations of the kin group,
which includes the dead (ancestors) of the
lineage. In a society where people prac-
tice ancestor worship, the dead are re-
garded as a sort of god (ancestor-god). If
the dead are ancestor-gods, the kin group
is assumed to be a divine, ethical entity
because it is a commune consisting of the
living and the ancestor-gods. An ances-
tor-god, disguised as a stranger, some-
times visits the living to make commu-
nion with them. The living must offer
shelter and hospitality to the guest-god.
In return for the hospitality, the guest-
god gives blessings to the hosts, and the
power of the spoken words ensures the
happiness and good health of the living4.
If an individual receives praise, it is
praise for his entire kin group. If anyone
living or dead is insulted, it is an insult
against the whole kin group. Such dis-
honor must be avenged by the living of
the kin group. If a person is killed, the
spilt blood asks for the blood of the slayer
or a member of his kin group. When the
living do not satisfy the demand of the
dead, the furious blood takes revenge on
the living. Therefore the living cannot fail
to take revenge. Because a kin group
comprised of the living and ancestor-gods
is a transcendental, ethical entity, the vi-
olence of revenge prosecuted by the kin
group is deemed a sacred force sacrificing the offender, whose blood is dedicated to
the furious ancestor-gods4.
The Kanun functions well as a cus-
tomary code in a society which has follow-
ing cultural features that: 1) there’s no
functioning state power, 2) a kinship sys-
tem is of great importance, 3) a kin group
is deemed a transcendental commune
consisting of the living and the dead, 4)
the kin group has an ethical obligation to
keep its existence in the community, 5)
animism and ancestor worship are preva-
lent, 6) the ethos of warriors is highly re-
garded, 7) spoken words are appreciated
more highly than written words.
Discussion
When Mishima’s ethical concepts are
compared with the ethical structure of
the Kanun, the following structural simi-
larities emerge.
The foundation of the commune indi-
cated by the Kanun and by Mishima is
»blood«; that is, consanguinity. As for the
Kanun, the commune of »blood« refers to
the kinship system of shpi-vllazni-fis,
while for Mishima, it means the cultural
commune of the Japanese. Such com-
munes are presided over not by the ruler,
but by the chief representing the com-
mune, whose rituals guarantee the tem-
poral continuity of the commune. As for
the Kanun, the chief refers to a patriarch
or a chieftain of the kin group, while for
Mishima, it means the Emperor. A com-
mune developed on the basis of »blood«
has an absolute, ethical obligation to pre-
serve its existence in the community. As
for the Kanun, the community means the
tribal society, while for Mishima, it
means the international community of
nations. The international community of
nations in modern world, where no uni-
versal sovereign power exists to preser-
ves order, may be metaphorically called a
society without state power. The ultimate
purpose of the communes of »blood« is to
continue to exist. Any action of a member
of the commune, taken to safeguard and
flourish the commune, is supposed to be
ethical, while any action that weakens
and harms the commune is unethical.
Given that a commune based on »blood«
connotes the endless repetition of »blood«,
its principles are in opposition to the con-
cepts of progress and development. Be-
cause internal conflicts are settled by the
commune itself, which is allowed to make
any decision with some arbitrariness, the
commune is considered to be a space of
freedom. Communes are both enemy and
ally towards each other, as all of them are
potential rivals. As for the Kanun, other
communes are shpi-vllazni-fis, while as
for Mishima, they are the cultural com-
munes of other nations. When one com-
mune grows too much, a conflict with
other communes is unavoidable because
they must compete for the control of a liv-
ing space. In order to keep the existence
of the commune in the community, the
warriors must stand up to fight for the
survival of the commune. It can be a fero-
cious, internecine battle because the com-
munes base their survival on it. When a
warrior dies in battle, he will merge with
the »blood« of the commune. The honor of
the dead is restored by the victory of the
commune, and the dead are appeased by
the rituals performed by the commune.
Thus, we can identify the structural
similarities of ethical concepts between
the Kanun and Mishima. Though kin
groups of the Kanun have different fea-
tures from the cultural commune of the
Japanese, Mishima sees little contradic-
tion between the two, as he imagines that
the cultural commune of the Japanese is
an entity analogous to a huge extended
family. In this context, it becomes clear
that the ethical concepts of Mishima are
closely related to those of a society with-
out state power.
The ethical structure of the Kanun,
which may be called the ethics of »blood«, is a value system which functions well in
a society without state power. It is a value
system with its own polarity, which does
not necessarily evolve into a value system
of a society with state power4. A society
without state power, which regards spo-
ken words more highly than written
words, may be regarded to be a society of
the mythological world. If the continuity
of the cultural commune of the Japanese
is guaranteed by the repetition of rituals
performed by the Emperor, it is not a
commune of the historical world, but a
commune of the mythological world.
In the 1960s, when Japanese society
was experiencing accelerated economic
development, Mishima began to look
back to wartime Japan and aspired to die
for the Emperor, to eternalize himself in
death. Apparently, Mishima’s theory of
ultra-nationalism, which ultimately cen-
ters on the ethos of warriors who die in
battle to defend the Emperor, involves
logic aimed at preserving the merits of
the cultural commune of the Japanese. At
the same time, it is a paradoxical logic,
which seems to be rushing towards the
ethics of a society without state power.
This paradox appears to be the essence of
the imperial system of wartime Japan,
whose slogan was to make the world one
family, which had the power to rouse feel-
ings of ecstasy and bliss among the Japa-
nese during WWII. The theoretical desti-
nation of the logic is that if the world is
united into one family under the aegis of
the Emperor, the state powers all over
the world including Japan will disappear,
ultimately resulting in a new world whe-
re the true harmony and peace which
characterize a family should prevail. The
alternative end-result of ultra-nationa-
lism is a society wherein the passion of
ethnocentrism and exclusionism might
be dominant. The ethical concepts of Mi-
shima, which may date back to the pri-
mordial culture of an ancient society
without state power, seem to be a logic
present and applicable not only in Japa-
nese society, but in societies and nations
all over the world.
REFERENCES
1. MISHIMA, Y.: Bunka Bouei-ron (The Defense
of Culture) in Japanese., (Shinchosha, 1969). — 2.
MISHIMA, Y., Taiyo to Tetsu (Sun and Steel) in Japa-
nese. In: Mishima Yukio Hyoron Zenshu Vol. 2,
(Shinchosha 1989). — 3. YAMAMOTO, K., The tribal
customary code in high Albania; a structural analysis
of the ethics. In: The Proceedings of Second Interna-
tional Congress on Physiological Anthropology. (Kiel,
1994). — 4. YAMAMOTO, K., Coll. Antrop. 23 (1999)
221.
K. Yamamoto
Kyushu Institute of Design, Shiobaru, Minami-ku, Fukuoka-shi, 815-8540 Japan
STUDIJA ETI^KOG KONCEPTA JAPANSKOG PISCA MISHIME,
ULTRA – NACIONALISTA
SA@ETAK
Nakon drugog svjetskog rata, ultra nacionalizam, kao vode}a ideologija ratnog Japana, po~ela je gubiti svoju inspiriraju}u mo} me|u Japancima. U 60-tim godinama
20-tog stolje}a, kada su Japanci po~eli osije}ati ekonomski prosperitet, Yukio Mishima,
`ale}i {to Japanci gube tradicionalni nacionalni duh i eti~nost, pripadao je gra|anima
koji su osije}ali jaku nostalgiju za ratnim Japanom. S namjerom o`ivljavanja duhovne
egzaltacije ratnog Japana, Mishima je poduzeo radikalan ~in kao ultra-nacionalist, i
ubio se izvr{iv{i »Hara-kiri«. Mishimini eti~ki koncepti, koji se usredoto~uju na ethos
ratnika koji se posve}uje obrani zajednice, ima strukturnu sli~nost eti~koj strukturi
»Kanuna«, koja se mo`e nazvati etikom »krvi«. Mishimina teorija ultra-nacionalizma
ima paradoksalnu logiku, koja je, izgleda, povezana s eti~kim konceptom dru{tva bez
dr`avne mo}i.
