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   デイヴ (deivudesu@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Nov-2024 16:38:11 JST デイヴ

   A fascinatingly detailed account of Jean-Paul Sartre & Simone de Beauvoir's monthlong visit to Japan in 1966 by @juliacbullock@bsky.social

   https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/91a889221a174314ad7a56d0b2951629

   (less impressed by the thoroughly westernised BS version of Mishima's death, however)

   • Joachim repeated this.
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     デイヴ (deivudesu@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Nov-2024 16:38:10 JST デイヴ

     in reply to

     I can't believe that, in 2024, there are still Western scholars peddling the hilariously bunk narrative of Mishima committing seppuku "as a protest against what he saw as the postwar emasculation of Japan as a nation"…

     2/ 🧵

     #mishima #Japan #history

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     デイヴ (deivudesu@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Nov-2024 16:38:36 JST デイヴ

     in reply to

     While *technically* correct, in the faintest of ways, this old chestnut of orientalist history (I remember reading the same version, word-for-word, when I first heard of him, 30y ago) papers over some major steps between the "protest at Western subjugation of Japan" and "commits ritual suicide"…

     The way more accurate short of it, is that Mishima offed himself after a comically bungled attempt at a military coup.

     3/ 🧵

     #Japan #history

     Joachim repeated this.
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     デイヴ (deivudesu@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Nov-2024 16:38:36 JST デイヴ

     in reply to

     The well-documented historical recount of Mishima's death (as opposed to the weirdly romanticised version peddled by Western scholars until a few decades ago) is not only a lot less savoury, but also filled with darkly hilarious details.

     Way closer to the silliness of QAnon Shaman on January 6, than some grand mystical gesture of political protest.

     4/ 🧵

     #Japan #history