今夏、第一話が放送されてから話題になっているTBS金曜ドラマ「Tシャツが乾くまで」。僕もNetflixなどでついつい観てしまっています。

事故で夫が行方不明となった咲子（蒼井優）と、同じ事故で妻を亡くした樹生（中島歩）の、喪失から始まる愛と秘密の物語です。

その中で、中島歩演じる樹生の妻・あずさ（夏帆）が古書店で立ち読みしているのが、三島由紀夫の『愛の渇き』。

店主から「不倫の話」と説明されるのですが、この本が物語の重要な鍵になるのではないかと話題になっているようです。

そんな中、僕のブログの読者の方からこんな質問をいただきました。

「こんばんは！！。果たして右翼の三島由紀夫氏が、やった事は合理的で正しい事なのでしょうか？」

三島由紀夫。

僕は高校生の頃、かなり読みました。ほぼ全巻読んだと思います。

『仮面の告白』『金閣寺』『潮騒』『鏡子の家』『豊饒の海』。

当時は三島の政治思想に興味があったというより、文章が好きだったんですよね。

あれだけ華美なのに、文章そのものは非常に緻密で、余計な言葉がない。日本語という言語をここまで人工的に美しく作れるのかと思った記憶があります。

三島が市ヶ谷で自決したのは1970年11月25日。

その時、僕は生を受けたばかりの赤ちゃんでした。

もちろん事件そのものの記憶はありません。

ところが十数年後、医学部に入り、法医学の授業を受けていた時です。

突然、講義のスライドに三島由紀夫の断頭後の写真が出てきました。

これは驚きました。

高校生の時に何冊も読んだ作家が、今度は法医学の教材として目の前に現れた。

小説の中にいた三島由紀夫と、市ヶ谷で本当に死んだ一人の人間が、その時に初めて僕の中でつながったように思います。

では、三島由紀夫がやったことは合理的だったのか。

これは政治行動として考えれば、僕は合理的ではなかったと思います。

自衛隊員に決起を呼びかけた。しかし誰も動かなかった。憲法も変わらなかったし、国家体制も変わらなかった。

政治というのは、基本的には結果を出すためのものです。

目的が憲法改正だったとすれば、市ヶ谷事件は成功とは言えない。

ただし、不思議なのはここからです。

三島由紀夫という人間の人生の中だけで考えると、あの行動には一貫性があるんですよね。

三島はずっと、言葉と肉体、精神と行動、美と死について書いてきました。

文学だけでは満足できなくなり、ボディビルで肉体を作り、自衛隊に体験入隊し、楯の会まで作った。

そして最後は、自分が書いてきた思想を自分の身体で実行した。

政治家として見れば非合理的。

しかし作家として見ると、実に三島らしい。

ここに三島由紀夫という人の怖さがあります。

では、そもそも彼は何に怒っていたのか。

三島を単純に「右翼」と呼んでしまうと、少し違う気がします。

もちろん天皇や国家について非常に強い思想を持っていましたが、彼が特に嫌ったのは、戦後日本の曖昧さだったのではないでしょうか。

例えば憲法9条です。

戦力を持たないと書いてある一方で、日本には自衛隊があります。

だったら軍隊なら軍隊と呼べばいい。

国を守る組織なら、国家の中できちんと位置づければいい。

三島は、こういう日本独特の「建前と現実の二重構造」が嫌だったのだと思います。

この問題提起自体は、今でも十分に理解できます。

戦後80年以上が経っても、自衛隊と憲法の関係について議論が続いているわけですから。

ただ、それと市ヶ谷で自衛隊員に決起を呼びかけることは別の話です。

民主国家で憲法を変えるなら、選挙と国会と国民投票で変えればいい。

少数の人間が実力で国家体制を変えるとなれば、それは民主主義とは違うものになります。

つまり、三島は問題の見つけ方は鋭かった。

しかし解決方法はかなり間違っていた。

僕はそう思います。

もう一つは天皇でしょう。

三島の考えていた天皇は、現在の象徴天皇とは少し違います。

政治権力というより、日本の歴史、文化、神話、祭祀、そういったものをまとめる精神的な中心としての天皇です。

戦後、日本は驚くほど豊かになりました。

焼け野原から世界第二位の経済大国にまでなった。

これは途方もない成功です。

しかし三島は、その代わりに日本人が何かを捨ててしまったのではないか、と感じていた。

名誉とか、覚悟とか、共同体とか、自分たちは何者なのかという感覚です。

ここも、全部否定してしまう話ではないと思います。

国が豊かになったからといって、人間が幸福になるとは限らない。

経済が成長しても、生きる意味までは与えてくれません。

三島はその空白を非常に敏感に感じ取っていたのかもしれません。

ただし、国家や共同体を個人より上に置きすぎれば、今度は個人の自由がなくなります。

そこまで行くと、僕は賛成できません。

そして、年齢を重ねてから三島事件について考える時、僕が一番気になるようになったのは森田必勝です。

三島と一緒に自決した楯の会の青年です。

三島45歳。
森田必勝25歳。

もちろん森田自身にも思想があり、自分の意思で行動したのでしょう。ですから、単純に「三島に巻き込まれた」と言ってしまうのも違うと思います。

しかし、それでも僕は考えてしまう。

45歳の、すでに世界的に知られた作家が、25歳の青年を自分の死にまで同行させてよかったのか。

自分の思想のために自分が死ぬのと、若い人間をそこまで引っ張っていくのは、全く別の問題です。

だから僕は、三島の最期を「武士道を貫いた」「美しい死だった」と単純に評価することには抵抗があります。

もう一つ、三島には昔から同性愛、あるいは両性愛ではなかったかという話があります。

『仮面の告白』を読めば、男性の肉体に対する非常に強い視線が描かれています。

ただ、小説は小説です。

作品の登場人物と作者本人をそのまま重ねることはできません。

三島は結婚し、子供もいました。

ですから現在の言葉で三島の性的指向を決めつけることはできないと思います。

ただ、男性の肉体、筋肉、軍服、若さ、英雄、そして死。

三島の作品と人生には、これらが繰り返し出てきます。

政治思想だけで三島由紀夫を説明するのは、やはり無理があるのでしょう。

文学、美学、身体、性、国家、天皇、死。

全部が混ざっている。

だから三島由紀夫は、今でも面白いのだと思います。

高校生の頃の僕にとって、三島由紀夫は日本語の美しい作家でした。

医学部では、法医学の写真の中にいる死者になった。

そして今改めて考えると、僕が一番不思議に思うのは、
なぜ、あれほど頭のいい人が、自分の美学を本当に現実世界で実行してしまったのか。
ということです。

読者の方の質問に答えるなら、

三島が指摘した戦後日本の矛盾には、今でも考える価値のあるものがある。

しかし、あの行動そのものが合理的だったかといえば、僕はそうは思わない。

正しかったかと聞かれても、同じです。

特に森田必勝という25歳の青年まで死んだことを考えると、簡単に美化してはいけないと思います。

ただ、
問題提起は間違っていなかった。

方法を間違えた。

そして、その間違え方まで含めて、いかにも三島由紀夫だった。

今の僕には、そんなふうに見えます。

Was What Yukio Mishima Did Rational—and Right?

This summer, a new TBS Friday-night drama called T-Shirt ga Kawaku Made has been generating quite a bit of attention since its first episode aired. I have found myself watching it on Netflix and elsewhere.

It is a story of love and secrets that begins with loss: Sakiko, played by Yu Aoi, loses her husband in an accident in which his whereabouts remain unknown, while Tatsuki, played by Ayumu Nakajima, loses his wife in the same accident.

At one point in the story, Tatsuki’s wife Azusa, played by Kaho, is seen browsing a book in a secondhand bookstore: Yukio Mishima’s Thirst for Love.

The shopkeeper describes it simply as “a story about an affair,” but apparently the novel may become an important key to the story, and viewers have been discussing its significance.

Amid all this, I received an interesting question from one of my blog readers:

“Good evening!! Do you think what Yukio Mishima, who was a right-winger, did was actually rational and right?”

Yukio Mishima.

I read quite a lot of Mishima when I was in high school. I think I read almost all of his major works.

Confessions of a Mask.
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion.
The Sound of Waves.
The House of Kyoko.
The Sea of Fertility.

At the time, it wasn’t so much Mishima’s political ideology that interested me.

I simply loved his writing.

For all its flamboyance, his prose was extraordinarily precise. There seemed to be no unnecessary words. I remember thinking that perhaps the Japanese language could be transformed into something this deliberately and artificially beautiful.

Mishima took his own life at the Ichigaya headquarters of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces on November 25, 1970.

At the time, I was barely a newborn.

Naturally, I have no memory of the event itself.

More than a decade later, however, after I entered medical school, something unexpected happened during a forensic medicine lecture.

Suddenly, a photograph of Yukio Mishima after his decapitation appeared on the lecture slide.

It was shocking.

The writer whose books I had read so avidly as a high school student was now appearing before me as a subject of forensic medicine.

The Yukio Mishima who had existed inside his novels and the human being who had actually died at Ichigaya seemed, at that moment, to become connected in my mind for the first time.

So, was what Yukio Mishima did rational?

If we look at it as a political act, I don’t think it was.

He called on members of the Self-Defense Forces to rise up.

No one followed him.

The Constitution was not changed.

The structure of the state did not change.

Politics, fundamentally, is about producing results.

If Mishima’s objective was constitutional revision, then the Ichigaya incident cannot be called a success.

But here is where things become more complicated.

If you look at that act within the context of Mishima’s entire life, there is a strange consistency to it.

Mishima had spent years writing about words and the body, the mind and action, beauty and death.

Eventually, literature alone was no longer enough for him.

He built his body through bodybuilding, trained with the Self-Defense Forces, and eventually created the Tatenokai, or Shield Society.

And in the end, he physically enacted the ideas he had spent his life writing about.

As a politician, it was irrational.

But as a writer, it was profoundly Mishima.

That is what makes Yukio Mishima such a frightening and fascinating figure.

So what, exactly, was he angry about?

I think simply calling Mishima a “right-winger” misses something important.

He certainly held extremely strong views about the Emperor and the Japanese state.

But perhaps what he particularly despised was the ambiguity of postwar Japan.

Take Article 9 of the Constitution.

It states that Japan renounces war and will not maintain war potential.

And yet Japan has the Self-Defense Forces.

If they are a military force, then call them a military force.

If they are an organization responsible for defending the country, then give them a clear and proper place within the state.

I think Mishima deeply disliked this uniquely Japanese double structure of principle and reality—the gap between what Japan said it was and what it actually was.

That particular criticism is still worth considering today.

More than eighty years after the end of World War II, Japan is still debating the relationship between the Self-Defense Forces and the Constitution.

But that is one question.

Calling on Self-Defense Force personnel to rise up at Ichigaya is another.

In a democratic country, if you want to change the Constitution, you do it through elections, the Diet, and a national referendum.

If a small group of people attempts to change the structure of the state through force, that becomes something fundamentally different from democracy.

In other words, **Mishima was perceptive in identifying the problem.

But he was profoundly mistaken about how to solve it.**

I think that distinction is important.

There is another issue: the Emperor.

Mishima’s conception of the Emperor was somewhat different from the role of the Emperor as a symbol of the state today.

For him, the Emperor was less a source of political power than a spiritual center encompassing Japan’s history, culture, mythology, and religious traditions.

After the war, Japan became astonishingly prosperous.

From a country reduced to ruins, it rose to become the world’s second-largest economy.

That was an extraordinary achievement.

But Mishima may have felt that, in exchange for that prosperity, the Japanese people had given something up.

A sense of honor.

A willingness to make sacrifices.

A sense of community.

And perhaps, most fundamentally, a sense of who we are.

I don’t think all of that can simply be dismissed.

Economic prosperity does not necessarily make people happy.

Economic growth can improve people’s lives, but it cannot, by itself, give them a reason to live.

Perhaps Mishima was unusually sensitive to that emptiness.

But if you place the state or the community too far above the individual, you eventually sacrifice individual freedom.

And that is where I cannot agree with him.

There is another person I have become increasingly preoccupied with when thinking about the Mishima incident as I have grown older:

Masakatsu Morita.

He was the young member of the Tatenokai who died alongside Mishima.

Mishima was 45.

Morita was 25.

Of course, Morita had his own beliefs and acted of his own accord. So I don’t think it is fair to simply say that he was “dragged into it” by Mishima.

And yet I cannot help wondering:

Was it really right for a 45-year-old internationally acclaimed writer to take a 25-year-old young man with him all the way to his own death?

There is a fundamental difference between choosing to die for one’s own beliefs and taking a young person along with you.

That is why I have difficulty simply describing Mishima’s final act as “the fulfillment of the samurai code” or as “a beautiful death.”

There is another aspect of Mishima that has long been discussed: whether he may have been homosexual, or perhaps bisexual.

In Confessions of a Mask, there are passages that reveal an intensely charged gaze toward the male body.

But a novel is a novel.

We cannot simply equate a fictional character with the author himself.

Mishima married and had children.

So I don’t think it is possible to assign a definitive sexual orientation to him using today’s terminology.

Still, the male body, muscles, military uniforms, youth, heroes, and death appear again and again throughout both Mishima’s work and his life.

It is probably impossible to explain Yukio Mishima through political ideology alone.

Literature.

Aesthetics.

The body.

Sexuality.

The state.

The Emperor.

Death.

All of these things are intertwined.

Perhaps that is precisely why Yukio Mishima remains so fascinating.

To me, as a high school student, Yukio Mishima was simply a writer who made the Japanese language extraordinarily beautiful.

At medical school, he became a dead man in a forensic photograph.

And now, looking back again, the thing I find most perplexing is this:

Why did someone as intellectually brilliant as Mishima actually carry his own aesthetic all the way into the real world?

If I were to answer my reader’s question, I would put it this way.

Some of the contradictions in postwar Japan that Mishima pointed out are still worth thinking about today.

But was the act itself rational?

I don’t think so.

Was it right?

Again, I don’t think so.

And especially when we remember that a 25-year-old man named Masakatsu Morita died as well, I don’t think Mishima’s final act should be romanticized too easily.

And yet—

The questions he raised were not necessarily wrong.

He chose the wrong way to answer them.

And perhaps, even in the way he got it wrong, there was something unmistakably, almost frighteningly, Mishima-like about him.

That is how I see Yukio Mishima today.