Man's World Issue 1 SFW Version

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN 'ARMS' AND 'LETTERS'
Is that your way of arms and letters? One can’t help but think that while the samurai Mishima acknowledges
terrorism, the writer Mishima shouldn’t …
I believe that the path of the sword and the pen, in short, should not diverge. It is an
extremely difficult dualism to put into practice. Weapons and letters can travel temporarily
isolated paths, but in the end they have to converge on the same path. In my current
situation, I exercise separately sometimes in weapons, sometimes in letters. When, for
example, I indulge in something like an ideological movement and my writing is not
influenced by it, even if it is minimal, the feeling I have is one of defeat. If I take care of a
novel, when I start to write it, I want to pour myself into it with all the energy that I can get
from within myself. Conversely, if I am concerned with a non-literary activity, such as an
ideological movement — and it doesn’t have to be something of the utmost importance —
the feeling I have is to give of myself everything until death and, considering my age, not to
be outdone by the young.
That must be the reason for not committing yourself to politics, the reason for not doing like the writer Shintarō
Ishihara, who has become a deputy. Is that so?
Yes I think so. Since I detest everything that is not pure, I would not wish to receive any
salary from the Liberal Democratic Party. If I received some money from them, from
politicians, everything I want to say would go to ruin. Put plainly: at this moment I am an
anti-political being. All I want to make now is a movement for justice. And I say this
knowing that maybe someone will laugh. My goal is to promote justice in today’s world.
Yoshida Shōin’s lifestyle. Indeed, I don’t think there is any other way to promote justice.
Is your Shield Society going to promote it? … I am not interested in movements of a spiritual order, but it seems
to me that the so-called human being has no other way than to live according to what he has chosen and to
remain faithful to his Will. If, as a result, this is how a social revolution is achieved, I think it is enough. What I
don’t like is that it is others who impose their justice on me.
The problem for me is justice. I don’t care what people say.
MAN'S WORLD
(Interview continues on page 84)
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