Fascinating read. I’ve been researching the interactions between Western right-wing thinkers and Asian philosophers for a while now, but I didn’t know that Mishima was popular among a certain set before Costin Alamariu promoted him. Seems that the pro/anti-Mishima camps adhere well to the conservative/reactionary distinction.
There is a Spanish far-right book (from the 1990s) dedicated to Ernest Junger, Yuko Mishima and Ezra Pound (the Portuguese edition has an additional chapter about Fernando Pessoa).
Comparing him to one of the Strasser brothers is an odd choice and I suspect a deliberately unflattering one. I have to imagine most of the NR set saw the Strassers as everything potentially bad about fascism (my understanding is that they were more sympathetic to Franco and non fascist reactionary rightists anyway).
It's a bit beside the point, but interesting that Mishima is the only one of the "canonical" literary suicides to be openly and vocally right-wing. (Koestler, maybe, though I pegged his politics as closer to Isaiah Berlin's left-centrism.) But isn't so much of conservative and reactionary aesthetics obsessed with decay, death, and lost causes?
I can think of Dominique Venner and Francis Parker Yockey. Venner much more of a parallel. Both Pagan or occultist in a way, which makes me wonder if there is a Christian element to the relative lack of suicides although I’m no doubt forgetting some.
Eh, I'm not sure those count as particularly canonical or literary—both are better known for their politics than their writing, and their writing was primarily about politics.
The Xtian element no doubt plays a part, as you say—but on the other hand, Schopenhauer and Cioran, both conservative in their sympathies (and Cioran was a fascist sympathizer in his youth), didn't have that excuse, and their writing is obsessed with morbidity and despair. But, again, this is a bit beside the point.
Fascinating read. I’ve been researching the interactions between Western right-wing thinkers and Asian philosophers for a while now, but I didn’t know that Mishima was popular among a certain set before Costin Alamariu promoted him. Seems that the pro/anti-Mishima camps adhere well to the conservative/reactionary distinction.
There is a Spanish far-right book (from the 1990s) dedicated to Ernest Junger, Yuko Mishima and Ezra Pound (the Portuguese edition has an additional chapter about Fernando Pessoa).
Hitting the trifecta!
Comparing him to one of the Strasser brothers is an odd choice and I suspect a deliberately unflattering one. I have to imagine most of the NR set saw the Strassers as everything potentially bad about fascism (my understanding is that they were more sympathetic to Franco and non fascist reactionary rightists anyway).
It's a bit beside the point, but interesting that Mishima is the only one of the "canonical" literary suicides to be openly and vocally right-wing. (Koestler, maybe, though I pegged his politics as closer to Isaiah Berlin's left-centrism.) But isn't so much of conservative and reactionary aesthetics obsessed with decay, death, and lost causes?
I can think of Dominique Venner and Francis Parker Yockey. Venner much more of a parallel. Both Pagan or occultist in a way, which makes me wonder if there is a Christian element to the relative lack of suicides although I’m no doubt forgetting some.
Eh, I'm not sure those count as particularly canonical or literary—both are better known for their politics than their writing, and their writing was primarily about politics.
The Xtian element no doubt plays a part, as you say—but on the other hand, Schopenhauer and Cioran, both conservative in their sympathies (and Cioran was a fascist sympathizer in his youth), didn't have that excuse, and their writing is obsessed with morbidity and despair. But, again, this is a bit beside the point.
It may just be that there is such a small pool of literary suicides that it is hard to draw trends.
A small pool by scientific standards, perhaps. But it's called "the Plath Effect" for a reason.