> What makes Mishima so dangerous today is that he produced beautiful art and culture from which the downstream political conclusions were unavoidable. This is

> What makes Mishima so dangerous today is that he produced beautiful art and culture from which the downstream political conclusions were unavoidable. This is strange to me. I can see a line between the kind of characters young Mishima constructed (extremely perceptive in limited ways, weird, [sometimes literally] impotent, and prone to mixing shame and violence and adoration) and the pretty basic understanding I have of the political ideas of the older Mishima. But the political ideas hardly seem "unavoidable". It's certainly plausible to me that somebody (apparently) traumatized by childhood weakness and confused identity would take up right-wing politics. It's also plausible to me that they would take up bodybuilding (check), realize that physical strength wasn't totally the problem (not check?), and, I dunno, go see a therapist or something. I guess I see the eventual politics as one natural way all that could have played out. But to me the root themes of Mishima's work aren't intrinsically political. This may also be biased because I've only read Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, which Wikipedia tells me pre-date his political writings, in the former case by quite a while.