Mishima Mind Over Matter

Because human beings have extensive brains they are able to live out consciously, what animals know and live in an unselfconscious state of mind. They are able to show the bravery, dedication and ability to self-sacrifice through self-conscious will that instinctual life forms show everyday in a non-self-conscious manner.

Thus we have the Samurai tradition of the warriors of Japan. In America the story of the Alamo defenders led by Colonel Travis provides a perfect expression of this Samurai-Nietzschian Will to Power, or Will to Life, earned by sacrificing self totally.

But all people, and all nations, have this ability, perhaps buried deep inside, but always there, waiting to spring forth in a glorious supernatural flowering of the sense of self-sacrifice for the greater good of other. Patriotism has its roots here, as does familial and romantic love, and varied forms of self-sacrifice.

All forms of self-conscious giving, especially the giving of that greatest gift of all, the gift of giving ones very life for specifically defined others. Never, let it be noted, for the general good of  “others” but only for a closely defined “other”such as friend, brother, neighbor, or nation. Always an individual or group precisely defined. These individuals and groups are not empty suits, they are nearly always the carriers of specific ideas, concepts, religious beliefs, and such, such as Freedom, the Flag, religion, language, culture, and race. 

Soldiers in war give their lives freely for many reasons, but it has been found that the most compelling reason for their giving up their lives is as a sacrifice for their “buddy,” that is the guy, or guys, who fights alongside them. It is these sorts of bonds that become the bonds of a life and death brotherhood that is the wellspring of what we call heroism, the palpable component of “honor,” and the touchstone of all sentiment and emotion.

But humans can only achieve this spiritual victory through intense self-conscious effort developed over time and always with an assortment of omnipresent other motivating, encouraging, and often dying with them. These bonds are a profound expression of the well-known “call to duty,” answering of the call of the sounded trumpet. This driving force, though often sublimated, prompts the Bible to declare: “For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?” Corinthians I 14

Mishima prepared himself for the battle as best he could, with the slender means at his disposal. He called out the Japanese military, and they did not respond to his somewhat uncertain trumpet, but still and all, it was an eternal mortification for them, and his sacrificial death has opened a festering wound in the Japanese national consciousness and the concomitant Samurai Spirit that will not heal easily or quickly.

In Japan, in some age to come, Mishima will be looked upon as a hero, but this is not that age. Right now, Japan and most of the rest of humanity is in an increasingly deepening trough of despair where self-preservation is everything that is daily bought at the cost of honor, duty, God and country, family and children that are all being thrown with abandon onto the bonfire of our ignoble selfish lusts. It is truly a generation of me, me, me, that has replaced that of thee, thee, thee. 

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