Talk:Kenji Miyazawa/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Lede discussion

I personally find the existing last clause of the lede, specifically, "and what influence (if any) this had on his life and work' seemingly perhaps unsourced, and, very possibly, contrary to the existing text of the article. We have later in the article a specifically cited claim, "but the group's website claims the influence of Nichirenism (the group's religio-political philosophy) can be seen in later works such as Ame ni mo Makezu," which does not have any refuting material indicating that the claim is wrong. On that basis, the existing text of the article proper seems to, at least at this point, contradict the possibly unsourced claim in the lede. If the source which has recently been added to the lede does not specifically include the material indicating the lack of clarity as to what (if any) influence his membership had on his life and work, then I believe that there are both grounds for removing the clause as unsupported, or, at least, to move that clause to a separate section.

This is, of course, over and above the existing fact that a one-paragraph lede is, as has already been stated, clearly failing to summarize the content of the article. Perhaps it might make more sense to stop arguing about what to exclude from the lede and more of a visible effort to make the lede conform to its more important purpose, which is summarizing the content of the article? John Carter (talk) 17:57, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

If a religious group's website says "other people say he left our group and he was never really that involved, but we can clearly see our grou['s influence on his writings", then we don't need another external source to contradict it. Also, could you please comment on the above-demonstrated fact that hardly any sources discussing Kenji even mention the group, and those that do almost universally imply his relationship with the group was superficial at best? None of the users arguing in favour of keeping the Kokuchukai article in the lede seem to actually have checked the sources, other than one cherry-picked article about his relationship with the group. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:40, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

You are free to take that question to WP:RSN or WP:NPOVN. However, given your own regularly expressed personal opinions about the matter, it is I believe very, very obvious that the last person who should make a decision about that matter is you. Also, in all honesty, unless the sources specifically support the contention, the material may well violate WP:OR and more or less require being removed in any event. Rather than continue to engage in discussion which does not meet the standards of what is and is not acceptable enough for content to be added, perhaps you could better spend your time in finding good sources which meet RS standards which specifically support the contention? It may be that the citation does, but, having not reviewed the article, I cannot say one way or another, and it would be useful for you in your position to have some source which specifically and clearly supports the contention of the last clause. John Carter (talk) 23:56, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

@User:John Carter: Why on earth would I post on those noticeboards to get you to comment on the previously examined evidence on this point!? As to whether "the website claims X but reliable source Y says not X" qualifies as OR (SYNTH?), under other circumstances I might be inclined to agree with you, but given that I added essentially the same thing to the Kokuchukai article and another user explicitly supported it, removing it from this article as OR but leaving it in that article is weird. I'm sure you agree. Anyway, reliable sources that say "Kenji left the group", "Kenji grew apart from the group", "Kenji rejected Tanaka's nationalist agenda" or "Kenji became 'independent' of the group" are in no short supply -- virtually every source discussing Kenji's relationship with the group seems to say one of these things. That Kenji rejected the group's nationalistic views is explicitly stated in those words, in English, on p198 of the source attached to it in the Kokuchukai article. Ironically, the fact that he rejected the group's nationalist agenda is one of the less verifiable claims about his biography, it seems, because hardly any sources discussing him even use the word "nationalism" anywhere. This is not, as you persist in saying, my "POV" -- if you continue to ignore the numerous times I have stated that my life would be no better or worse regardless of what this Taisho writer's political/religious views were, I will take this as an assumption of bad faith and respond appropriately. Additionally, the fact that you have admitted to engaging in off-wiki contact with users who don't seem to like me, combined with the fact that you seem to be commenting furiously on this page without having actually read any of the previous discussion yourself, gives me pretty good reason to doubt your good faith in this matter.

Please stop dodging my question and tell me: Do you reject the previous consensus that "Kenji was a nationalist" does not belong on this page because it is a fringe view and hardly any sources even mention it? Have you even read the previous discussions? If so, what is your opinion on the fact that hardly any sources discussing Kenji even mention the Kokuchukai? If not, did you know that hardly any sources discussing Kenji even mention the Kokuchukai?

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:21, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

In answer to your first question, beyond the extremely explicit and unfounded accusation that the only purpose would be to get me to comment, I guess I have to indicate to you that it would be for getting other editors, not necessarily myself, who may have a much better grasp of policies and guidelines than you display in your extremely prejudicial comment above to comment on how to apply policies and guidelines. There is more than a little reason to believe your own grasp of them is perhaps at best inadequate. Your statement that it is not your POV may be true, but I cannot believe that any individual who has any sort of grasp and policies would so absolutely link being a member of an organization with being a nationalist, as you have obviously done with the title of a thread earlier on this page. The fact that there is good reason to believe your grasp of policies and guidelines may be at best inadequate, coupled with your apparent insistence in drawing SYNTH/OR conclusions about the facts and presenting that SYNTH/OR as the primary question, which is also itself inherently problematic, continue to raise questions regarding your ability to edit the content here reasonably and also, unfortunately, your basic competence to understand and adhere to the policies and guidelines of the project. John Carter (talk) 15:33, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I asked you to comment on something. You said that I could ask that question on RSN or NPOVN. How is this an "extremely explicit and unfounded accusation"? Also, the responsibility for getting other editors who agree with you to comment is yours, not mine. Enough editors have already sided with me in this dispute over the last year that I don't need yu to agree with me in order to revert you. Additionally, how is it "SYNTH/OR" to say that the website continues to claim Kenji (it does) and that other sources say he left the group (they do)? And you still haven't ansered my question. Also, have you been receiving off-site emails requesting that you comment here in someone's stead? Are you engaging in IBAN-violation meatpuppetry? If not, how do you explain your suddenly taking such an interest in this page when up till now you had only commented once, briefly? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:31, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

You said, and I quote, "Why on earth would I post on those noticeboards to get you to comment on the previously examined evidence on this point!? " The quetsion is both obviously prejudicial and frankly irrational. You seem to be rather obviously saying that the 3-2 majority support, which obviously didn't include you, is somehow something that you can overlook on the rather dubious claim that it does not constitute a consensus. If you believe that, then your reasonable option would be to start an RfC on what should be included. It is OR and frankly dare I say incompetent for you to argue that his leaving the group somehow supports the contention that the material included in the article that you keep reverting doesn't belong. Despite your obvious insistence that your question is somehow the only factor to take into account, you will find that policies and guidelines, such as SYNTH and OR, take priority over the sometimes obviously straw man questions biased editors sometimes ask to attempt to support their own positions. I regret to say that you seem to my eyes to be displaying an unfortunate tendency toward a mental form of tunnel vision which can be and often is extremely problematic. And, now, I have not been receiving any e-mails requesting my involvement. Have you been sending e-mails or other messages to recruit individuals to your side? I am taking an interest because, frankly, I believe your conduct to date has been irregular, contrary to policies and guidelines, and rather obviously to my eyes being taken to support your own view of the topic in question, which does not seem to be in full accord with either the majority opinion of academia or even of the previously involved editors. Despite what some might see as a rather recurring tendency toward paranoic thinking, I am involved because (1) any page I edit is automatically added to my watchlist, and (2) I have seen edits which seem to my eyes to be out of accord with basic policies and guidelines. It is I think reasonable to watch pages which are subject to problematic editing, and I have tended to do so throughout my history as an editor here. John Carter (talk) 22:52, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

John Carter, how many sources do I need to cite that specifically say he was not a nationalist before it stops being "OR"? And please explain to me how it can be OR to not include a claim in the article. 182.249.7.239 (talk) 00:30, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

By the wqy: "the 3-2 majority support"? Whose numbers are those? I would assume "3" refers to SilkTork, Ubikwit and yourself, but for the fact that nothing in your RFC comment remotely indicated that you supported the "with nationalist leanings" wording. If you are to be counted based on your post-close actions, then we would need to include Dekimasu because of his/her clearly stated view both before and after the RFC, and maybe even the IP before the RFC and Sturmgewehr88 after. Add me and Wikimandia and that's five in the "no mention of the group in the lede" against you and two others. And what of last June's RFC? Your argument hinges entirely on extrapolations made on number-crunching, and the most logically acceptable extrapolations are not even on your side. Let alone the fact that I was the wordsmith behind the wording you are upholding and I have changed mh mind about it. 182.249.15.106 (talk) 07:38, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Hijiri, please read WP:IDHT. Rather than induolging in your favored tactic of pure repetition, perhaps you could actually respond to the question I asked, specifically indicating where you have provided the source in which it is said that he is not a nationalist. That would be useful. Your ongoing tendency to indulge in mindless insults without directly answering the question I asked, regarding where you actually provided the evidence, would be actually useful, if you had any interest in that sort of thing of course.

ALso, you might be interested in noting that an academic source, specifically an academic journal, was provided to support the contention, by SilkTork I believe. Actually, it is generally agreed that consensus qua consensus is rather less important than consensus based on other extant policies and guidelines. As such, the consensus based on the evidence provided takes priority. If, of course, you wish to take this matter to arbitration, believe me, I would welcome giving the ArbCom a full record of everything I have received and gathered myself regarding your conduct in this and in other recent instances. John Carter (talk) 16:57, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Kenji Miyazawa and nationalism

Much as it might surprise quite a few people, there are actually quite a few sources specifically discussing the issues of Kenji Miyazawa and nationalism. They include:

• this source from the Asia Pacific Journal, March 20, 2009, which says, and I quote, that he was an "ardent follower of Kokuchakai", particularly noting that it does not say of Nichiren Buddhism but of Kokuchakai specifically.
• this article from Dharma World magazine, which says quoting "He may have been an ardent, even fanatic, believer in the Nichiren Sect of Buddhism, ..."

the journal Gengo to bunka 7 (2005) has an article by Eishiro Ito on "Nationalism in Ulsysses and Kenji Miyazawa's works"

The work "Introduction to the Lotus Sutra by Yoshiro Tamura" can be found on the web here, and it contains the very interesting statement, "Miyazawa's admiration for Tanaka and Nichiren was abnormally passionate, as can be seen in his letters... "I joined the Practice of Faith Division of the Pillar of the Nation Association. In other words, my life now belongs to Saint Nichiren. Thus I am now under the direction of Professor Chigaku Tanaka."

• From "Buddhism in the Modern World:Adaptations of an Ancient Tradition By Steven Heine, Charles S. Prebish" available here says Kenji was "drawn to Tanaka for a time, though [he] would ultimately reject his [Tanaka's] nationalist views." It is worth noting that it does not say he rejected nationalism per se, but rather specifically Tanaka's individual nationalist views. Rejecting one form of nationalism is simply rejecting one form of nationalism, not necessarily of nationalism per se.
• The article in the encyclopedia Religions of the World edited by Gordon Melton and others, says "The significance of [Kokuchukai] lies not so much in its size or activities but in its influence on important personalities of modern Japan. Japanese poet Miyazawa Kenji and ... were members of Kokuchukai.
• The book "Epic Grandeur: Toward a Comparative Poetics of the Epic by Masaki Mori" has snippets available on the web, including one from page 210 which can be seen here which says specifically that "Miyazawa reportedly starting writing his tales enthusiastically because he was advised by one of the leaders of the Kokuchukai, a Buddhist nationalist organization in Tokyo, to write Hoke bungaku (Lotus Sutra literature)." If the Kokuchukai and its members were the cause of his writing his tales, it is hard to imagine that they weren't important enough to be mentioned in the lead, isn't it?

Quite a few other sources can be found, and included in at least snippet form, on Google through the searches "Kenji Miyazawa Kokuchukai" and "Kenji Miyazawa nationalism". From what I can see, none of them specifically indicate that he rejected "nationalism," just the specific form of nationalism advocated by Kokuchukai. There is a difference. It would definitely be OR to say that he rejected nationalism if the sources say that he only specifically rejected a specific form of nationalism. Granted, it might be OR to say that he specifically accepted nationalism if he accepted only one specific form of nationalism, but saying he was a follower of Kokuchukai, when he was, apparently, according to at least one of the sources, an "ardent" follower of Kokuchukai who only later, according to sources, rejected Tanaka's nationalist views, is something different. What would be particularly useful would be knowing how Tanaka's views did or did not change over time. These are just a few readily available sources on the net, of course. I am rather amazed that at least one editor who has been editing this article for years has never apparently looked for them. I also note that at least one source on the web heresays this subject has recently become "one of Japan's most read and best loved authors," and suppose it might be possible that some individuals might not want to have one of their leading heroes be described as having views which are not popular today, and that it might be possible for "fans" of the subject to perhaps even be willing to perhaps distort things to downplay material which would not necessarily cast the subject in what might be seen in current Japan as a truly heroic light.

P. S. I also note that the google search indicates a PhD thesis, "The Theme of Innocence in Miyazawa Kenji's Tales," by Takao Hagiwara, which is also available for downloading as a .pdf free off the web at the address starting "https://" and continuing "www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCMQFjAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcircle.ubc.ca%2Fbitstream%2Fhandle%2F2429%2F27103%2FUBC_1986_A1%2520H33.pdf%3Fsequence%3D1&ei=79U_VZ75AcSyyASCu4D4Ag&usg=AFQjCNG6Z1MZb2Xx49VDhwcxJ5Y9ZOYdCg&bvm=bv.91665533,d.aWw", contains a lengthy biography of Miyazawa. It is listed on google as cited by two sources, "Modern Japanese tanka: an anthology" by M. Ueda, and "Beyond Dualism: Towards Interculturality in Pictorialisations of Miyazawa Kenji's' Snow Crossing'(Yukiwatari) by H. Kilpatrick, according to a link which has been blacklisted here for some reason but has the following material as its webpage, following the "https://" www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=19&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CEMQFjAIOAo&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcircle.ubc.ca%2Fbitstream%2Fhandle%2F2429%2F27103%2FUBC_1986_A1%2520H33.pdf%3Fsequence%3D1&ei=Ts4_VYyLBY6MyASz9ICwBQ&usg=AFQjCNG6Z1MZb2Xx49VDhwcxJ5Y9ZOYdCg&bvm=bv.91665533,d.aWw as per here. It is admittedly a doctoral dissertation, which isn't necessarily something that meets RS, but being cited by sources generally is indicative that it is a reliable source, as it is apparently relied upon by other sources. It has maybe one of the fullest biographical works available on the subject, at least among those I can find. Others are free to take it to WP:RSN if they see fit, of course. If it is found to be reliable, it may be that the biographical section of that paper might be the best, and maybe one of the longest, sources for material on the biography of this subject, unless others are aware of other similar biographical sources of course. John Carter (talk) 18:23, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

@John Carter: You don't appear to read Japanese, so you don't have access to somewhere between 90% and 99% of the reliable sources on Miyazawa Kenji, so has maybe one of the fullest biographical works available on the subject, at least among those I can find doesn't mean a whole lot. I already went out and found a wide array of general reference works with independent articles on Kenji, and they don't support your contentions. You rejected them out of hand because they are "old" (even though the earliest was published four decades after our subject died), but I think you didn't actually read them. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:49, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Jacqueline I Stone's paper in Steven Heine, Charles S. Prebish (eds.) From "Buddhism in the Modern World:Adaptations of an Ancient Tradition, p.198 is very, very authoritative, John. He rejected the extremism. As for nationalism, every one is a nationalist, in the sense that they wish for the good of their own countries. compared to the hotheads thick on the ground and all around him, there seems to be no evidence that political nationalism of the kind Tanaka and Ishiwara Kanji preached would have evoked anything but distaste in the poet.Nishidani (talk) 19:18, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

No disagreement that he rejected it in time. Does it specifically say when he rejected the extremism, however? I admit I haven't checked everything myself, yet, and that includes both the encyclopedia I listed above and the .pdfs I was sent by Resource Exchange. The questions here aren't really about the "nationalism" per se, but about his ties to Kukochukai or however it is spelled, and when perhaps the group became strongly nationalist, particularly as it relates to his acceptance or rejection of it. I have a feeling, although I am clearly not an expert, that we might really benefit from a maybe more detailed article or group of articles on Japanese nationalism, which doesn't seem to cover the nationalist tendencies of the post-war period very well. Admittedly, it probably isn't the top priority of the related WikiProjects. I know how damn many central articles on religious traditions are still missing in wikipedia, and I imagine the same weakness of broad topical coverage exists in Japan related content as well. The two questions I guess are (1) how long should this article ultimately be and (2) proportionally, how much coverage to his religious opinions and his involvement in Kokuchukai and whatever else. Personally, I've always held that we shouldn't be longer than the longest overview on the same topic, but I dunno what that might be yet. The length of the lede would be dependent on the first of those points. The apparent point of dispute, at present, seems to be how to describe his beliefs, and how important to place the nationalism of Kokuchukai in the description of those beliefs, particularly in the lede. I am in no way going to cast an at this point ill-founded opinion on that, but I have to say if his ties to the group were one of the issues which caused him to be a writer, a description of his religiosity in some form merits some mention in the lede. John Carter (talk) 19:30, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

@Nishidani: As usual, Nishidani, you have brought the big guns, and this is (again as usual) deeply appreciated. I haven't gone through your very long comment in detail yet, but is it safe to assume you are taking the same attitude you took (and brought me around to, mind you) on Talk:Korean influence on Japanese culture that we should increase discussion of Kenji and nationalism in the article so as to accurately present what all the sources say? If not, I think this discussion might be unnecessary... Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:20, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't see a single source that characterizes Miyazawa as a nationalist per se.
He joined a group with nationalist leanings after converting to a Lotus sutra-based sect while in his early 20s, but that does not mean he fully understood the ideological orientation of the group at that time. The characterization in the lead of "in the latter half of his life" is misleading, as he died while in his mid 30s and is said to have read the Lotus sutra when 15 years old.
Meanwhile, since this is the English language Wikipedia, any mention of the "Kokuchukai" probably requires an introductory remark to make it intelligible.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 02:42, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

@Ubikwit: Where did you get that he read the Lotus Sutra when he was 15? Keene (the source cited in the article for the claim that he converted on reading the Sutra) says 1915, when Kenji would have been 18/19. That's the exact mid-point of his life, so saying "the latter half of his life" is accurate. Also, I corrected your misprint of "latter" as "later" in the above comment -- I hope you don't mind, but the meaning is different, and the wording you are quoting had "latter". Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:20, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

I stand corrected, having confused the year with his age. At any rate, the overall import of my statement remains unchanged. He read the sutra six years before he went to Tokyo, right?

He was relatively young when he died by modern standards, and I don't see why there is an emphasis being put on the latter half of his life. That seems to skew the course of events in an unintelligible manner. What exactly is the point, and what sources are being summarized for that editorialized sounding statement?--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 11:12, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, given that the 1896 birth, 1915 conversion, and 1933 death dates are not in dispute, I highly doubt no sources have ever said "latter half of his life" -- it's just math. As for why I used the words I did: I don't honestly remember, but I suspect it was because it sounded nice to me -- it may sound "editorialized" to you, but we can't account for taste. One could read my wording as saying something I had been arguing on this talk page for a while, that he became a Nichiren Buddhist in 1915 and not 1920/1921 ("During the latter half, not the latter third"). If your concern, though, is that the wording creates a false impression that he converted in his 30s or 40s (!), then would you be adverse to "the latter half of his short life"? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:40, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

To me it seems that sources commenting on the course of events and significance to his life and work are what editors should be seeking. It doesn't teach the reader anything to map out a chronology on a timeline. So, for example, maybe information about the tension between him and his father regarding his conversion to Nichirenshu. I would assume--purely speculating--that he converted before making the sojourn to Tokyo, and had tried to convert his family as well before embarking on that journey. The Keene source is vague and doesn't go into detail, and I don't know if there are other sources (would assume that there are in Japanese), but that is the kind of information that would be informative regarding the role of religion at different points in his life and its reflection in his work.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 15:02, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

I have to agree that using any phrase referring to the "latter half of his life" or similar is probably less than productive. One, because, at least in the West, that is basically a euphemism for someone who has passed his mid-40s but doesn't want the specific number of years they've been living mentioned. "Of a certain age," which is never apparently actively specified, is another such euphemistic term. It is also kind of strange for most people to think in terms of "halves of lives" or similar while they are still living. And, lastly, of course, most people count early childhood as "living," obviously, but very few of us make any real decisions during those years, although the use of the phrase seems to at least implicitly indicate otherwise. All that being the case, it would make a lot more sense to just you basically the numerical ages rather than use any sorts of after-the-fact fractions. John Carter (talk) 23:37, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Reconfiguring Literary career section

I would like to request editors of this page to consider expanding and subdividing the "Literary career" into separate sections dealing with Miyazawa's poetry and fiction. I find these topics are treated insufficiently or in insufficient depth, and I believe an expansion would help balance the article and reduce the problem of overemphasis on controversies. I'd like to see discussion of major works, critical reception and later evaluations, claims about his importance, aspects of his modernism, themes, etc. with some attention to the development of his work in these areas. Perhaps the questions of Buddhism and nationalism could be revisited with advantage after such an expansion.--Icuc2 (talk) 11:08, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree with you but in case you haven't noticed that section probably needs to be shortened and merged into a longer section called "Biography" or maybe "Later life", and then a new section called "Literary career" be written. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:24, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps the major lacuna here is a treatment of his world view, his Buddhist-based concept of man within the universe, the aesthetics that derive from this, an aesthetic by the way that actually challenged by its freshness of naïve perceptions the standard canon (often used by nationalists) of acceptable, tradition-soaked imagery. Just to tie his religious to Tanaka Chigaku's movement creates hermeneutic problems. Miyazawa was far too sensitive to suffering, and children, and, like Kafka, to the minor creatures of nature, to be sucked into the kind of febrile state-messianic nationalism you find in the more prominent advocates of Nichiren, and Buddhism generally in the kurai tanima period. The section on religious views is simple doctrinal and activist without touching on the cosmology. There is a good treatment of all this in a recent book, which is ignored by the article so far: Helen Kilpatrick, Miyazawa Kenji and His Illustrators: Images of Nature and Buddhism in Japanese Children's Literature, BRILL, 2014. Nishidani (talk) 12:11, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

I just feel the article is talking around his writing rather than about it. He's a famous writer, so when I look at his page, I want to find out why he's famous, which of his works are famous, and what sort of works they are. All I see here are titles of a few of his early works. Most of the article seems to consist of unconnected or loosely-connected biographical fragments. These could be made to come together better, but mainly I'd like to see discussion of his works and his life about equally weighted. I think it usually makes more sense to separate these topics rather than merge the discussion of works into the discussion of the life. I don't much care for the heading "Literary career" because it seems somewhere in the middle of works and life. From what I understand he doesn't seem to have had that much of a literary career as such. The reason I'd like to separate out the works for separate treatment is that a lot of the Miyazawa material is literary criticism of various sorts. Some of that criticism may be biographical but room should be made for non-biographical discussions of his work as well. A possible overall structure might be Life / Works / Criticism, with the possibility of subdividing each of those sections. Life could be divided into around four parts, Works into two, and Criticism could allow for all of those delightful debates that everyone is getting so worked up about.--Icuc2 (talk) 12:48, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

I myself would have no objections to a separate article on the Writings of Kenji Miyazawa, which could include reference to the criticism positive and negative of his work as a whole, provided that is in fact sufficiently notable as a topic unto itself. Many, probably most so far as I can tell, of the individual works are notable, and could easily include more material regarding the criticism of the topics of those separate articles. And I have a feeling that if there are enough works focusing on "themes" in his work as a whole, that would be sufficient for the creation of an article discussing the works collectively. It probably is the case that more people will be seeking this page for critical material on the works themselves, and I wouldn't mind having more fully developed material on that subject, but, in general, the article titled after the name of the person themselves is pretty much as per WP:COMMONNAME going to give primary weight to the material of a biographical nature, because that is the general impression of what an article containing only a person's name would be about. John Carter (talk) 21:19, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Rather, we're talking too much here, and not working on the article. In addition to the two sources I have already mentioned, there is, recently, another excellent study which, by the way, knocks the ground out of the ultranationalist thesis of guilt by association. I.e.

Melissa Anne-Marie Curley, ‘Fruit, Fossils, Footprints:Cathecting Utopia in the Work of Miyazawa Kenji,' in Daniel Boscaljon (ed.), Hope and the Longing for Utopia: Futures and Illusions in Theology and Narrative, James Clarke & Co./ /Lutterworth Press 2015.pp,96-118

‘He spent less than a year in Tokyo around Kokuchūkai’s headquarters before permanently returning to his hometown in rural Iwate prefecture far from Tanaka’s ambit, and he died in 1933 before the state’s mobilization of its citizens and subjects for total war was fully underway, giving him “practically no chance to get involved in any such activity.” Jacqueline Stone suggests that Kenji in fact broke with Tanaka ideologically later in life; Roger Pulvers suggests that he was too naïve to engage ideology effectively in the first place.’ p.97

Her perspective is to note the frequent association of the utopian imagination with totalitarian, citing impressive thinkers, and then state that, since Tanaka himself was a utopian who turned totalitarian, "(t)his leaves Kenji vulnerable to critique regardless of his association with the Kokuchūkai." p.98. Having stated this though she then shows that Miyazawa’s utopian vision differed from that which inspired Tanaka. The central Lotus Sutra tenet of jōjakkōdo (常寂光土:Land of Eternally Tranquil Light), which an ultranationalist like Tanaka thought ought to be objectified in the secular reality of Japan, coterminous with the Japanese polity (kokutai) and then extending from Mt Fuji outwards to the 8 corners of the earth (implicitly ultranationalist), Miyazawa decentered the concept – the move to the hardscrabble backwater of Iwate is an existential cypher of his rejection of the metropolitan state that obsessed political nationalists. For Miyazawa, the pure land of eternal tranquil light can irrupt into the given world of suffering anywhere. She adopts the concept of “invagination’ from Gayatri Spivak, meaning “the supernatural in the pocket of the natural”, the cathecting of the transcendental ideal, the pure land, into the real world, and the locus for this was imaginatively embodied in his Īhatōvu, a dimension underlying the commonplace realities of life in Iwate where everything was possible, blissful, sacred. The magical substrate had all the lineaments of the modern world, but interreacted with it (the profound influence of Miyazawa on Murakami Haruki should be obvious, and Murakami's positions are diametrically opposed to nationalism)...

I haven't got time to work the article. It's more productive to read around and edit the text. Improvement is easy, if a tad time-consuming.Nishidani (talk) 13:05, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

This is all very interesting stuff, but isn't it a bit above the target level for Wikipedia? Anyway, if no one actually wants to work on the article I guess I don't need to bother making suggestions.--Icuc2 (talk) 13:28, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

So, no articles on Aristotle's syllogism, or Heidegger or, to cite other mysterious topic impermeable to reason, Italian or American politics? I've dropped some notes, so any one can simply copy and paste them, and then copyedit if lucidity is the problem.Nishidani (talk) 13:41, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

@User:Nishidani: Rather, we're talking too much here, and not working on the article. That's all very well and good, but in the past two years the only three substantive additions to the article's text were User:Shii two Decembers ago adding a single (unreferenced, but probably accurate) sentence about how his works came to be published posthumously, my last month adding a section on the religious beliefs (although I concur with you that right now it looks more like a discussion of his affiliation than his beliefs), and User:Sturmgewehr88 spending (in his own words) twenty minutes reading the article and summarizing it. I have expressed a willingness and an intention, and demonstrated my ability, to expand and improve this article dramatically. But how can I be expected to do that when I have another user (who has never shown any ability or willingness to improve the article in any way) at this very moment asking for me to be TBANned from editing this and a huge swath of other articles for supposedly engaging in personal attacks and harassment against him on this page, when to every other user who has commented it looks a lot more like the reverse? My attempt to alter the wording of the lead even slightly in the past week has met with a huge shitstorm of attacks from this user (along with varying levels of rational disagreement from yourself, User:Ubikwit, User:Sturmgewehr88 and User:Icuc2 and mild agreement from User:Dekimasu and User:Wikimandia) and my last significant contribution to the page's content has had every word of it pored over in an attempt to find even the slightest hints of NPOV- or NOR-violations, apparently with no good rationale for believing that there are such. Why should I be expected to make any further additions to the article when I can only expect more of the same? What about Sturmgewehr's suggestion of a TBAN or a one-way IBAN for the one poisoning this whole discussion and making rational discussion impossible with his constant harassment and off-topic ad hominem remarks? I know TBANs are hard to establish and one-way IBANs virtually impossible, but ... he seems to listen to you -- could you at least suggest to him that he cools it down and maybe takes a break from following me around as he has been? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:12, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

I work perhaps the dankest shithole on Wikipedia, where bad faith, racism, pathological ideologically-driven nationalist passive aggressiveness is quite frequent, indeed normal. I'm still there after 9 years because I just plug away, stay focused on academic sources, which can't be removed or challenged in good faith, or under exceptional circs. A lot of even good, respectable editors and admins might even think I am a problem. I don't let things like that worry me, I ignore most of the bullshit, sidestep invitations to retaliate, and, above all, husband my time by avoiding ANI/AE/forums. At times, I even find very decent chaps who radically disagree with my edits on occasion, urbane, informed and amenable to productive dialogue. These are my conditions for working on wiki: to avoid making it a personal waste of time, which it often threatens to be. I wouldn't worry too much about the talk page. Edit, be brief here, and see if your edits gain consensus. My experience is, the longer you argue, the less otherwise good editors are disposed to follow them, and the pages where they take place. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 14:25, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

@User:Icuc2, User:Nishidani, User:Ubikwit, User:Dekimasu, User:Sturmgewehr88: I've already started putting together a revised version of the article in which all of the unsourced material would be either sourced or tag. The only source I had access to this afternoon during my lunch break was Keene, so that's the only source I've added so far, and barely even started even with that, but I'll get there. If you want to contribute to the redraft you are welcome. Opinions on the changes I've already proposed are also welcome. If you edit the article within the next week or so but don't duplicate the changes on my userspace draft, please don't be offended if I accidentally override your edits later on (you can just restore them, of course). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:21, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

The lede issue

I waited quite a while before I would post anything about this issue.

• It was established not to call Kenji a nationalist
• It is also an established fact though he was a member Kokuchūkai
• His affiliation with Kokuchūkai is the only known with Nichiren Buddbism. Although Kokuchūkai is on the very fringe of Nichiren Buddhism it is never the less in some ways based on the Lotus Sutra.
• Kenji’s Family were adherents of Pure Land Buddhism NOT based on the Lotus Sutra.

From all what was said and done in this article to call the man a “devout” Buddhist is a peacock term as the only devotion that can be accounted for is the one towards named organisation. An alternative lede would be “Kenji Miyazawa (宮沢 賢治 Miyazawa Kenji?, 27 August 1896 – 21 September 1933) was a Japanese poet and author of children's literature in the early Shōwa period. He was also known as a Buddhist and member of Kokuchūkai, vegetarian, and social activist.” I do agree as this issue has been dragging on for months now to call the guy a nationalist may be disputable. What is undisputable however is his affiliation with Kokuchūkai as the only religious affiliation to be accounted for. Kokuchūkai may or may not be nationalist today it surely was then back in the days he joined – excuses like saying “I did not know what I was doing back then” are an well established excuse in the country I reside in. If some would like to use Wikipedia to establish revisionist tendencies they just might go ahead but have to live with opposition.--Catflap08 (talk) 20:08, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

I think I remember one of the Bush family, "Dubya" in particular, saying something like "When I was young and stupid I was young and stupid." Most of us can say the same thing, including many who could but never would. I don't think anyone would hold it against a teenager becoming tied to a (to him) new religious tradition maybe, in the beginning, being a little too enthusiastic. Been there, done that. And I could certainly see someone of Asian descent rejecting Pure Land Buddhism, which at least to me looks more than a little like Judeo-Christianity revised for Buddhism, and may have looked the same to others in the past or today. Some might consider a "desire to get back to roots" grounds for a conversion, much like what seems to maybe be the case with a lot of the modern pagan revivals. Nor would it be at all unusual for a new convert of any sort to take a while to realize that there are at least a few points he disagrees with in his new beliefs, maybe strongly, and rejecting them personally. It is fairly common, so far as I can see. I wish our content relating to religious conversion of all sorts were better, because I think I've seen in reference sources and academic journal content on that subject such issues discussed regularly. It is at least in my eyes in no way a negative "criticism" of someone to say that they metaphorically jump into the deep end of the pool without realizing that and try to move over to the shallow end later. I don't know if that would be the case here, but it certainly seems, based on what I have seen, that something of the type might be true.

It does seem to me that his ties Kokuchukai or however it's spelled seems specifically important enough to be mentioned in the lede. How to express that connection might need some work, particularly relating to its opinions at the time he apparently accepted it and when and specifically why he clearly rejected the group's nationalist tendencies. John Carter (talk) 20:24, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

@Catflap08: I agree with the points you made, but I still think Kenji being an agricultural science teacher should be mentioned in the lede. What is your opinion of the rest of the lede?

@John Carter: Yes, Kokuchūkai should be mentioned in the lede, however, it should just say "he was a member of the Kokuchūkai" and let the body section describe his relationship with it. Is that not agreeable? ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 22:30, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

I note you seem to once again be trying to make immediate judgments and snap decisions. You have called an RfC above, and I believe it would be reasonable to either close the RfC, if you are now, so quickly after opening it, attempting to act independent of it. If you intend to keep the RfC open, then it would be reasonable for you to allow others to comment. We do not necessarily have to make decisions almost instantly here. And, personally, considering I haven't yet consulted all the sources I have acquired, including the three sources from the Resource Exchange and the .pdf, I think it would be unreasonable to rush to judgment. I am willing to send the documents I have found to anyone who sends me an e-mail, which I can use to forward the documents to them. It would be to my eyes most reasonable to actually try to consult all the sources first, before making a decision, rather than attempting to make another perhaps premature decision. John Carter (talk) 22:53, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

@John Carter: Act independent? And I am in no way impeding others' ability to comment on the RfC. But yes, we are still waiting for those sources. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 23:41, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

@Sturmgewehr88: And your wait will be a ridiculously long one until and unless you actually do what I indicated, which is give me an address to send them to. Wikipedia's internal e-mail does not permit including attachments or .pdfs, so there is no way to send them unless I have an address to send them to. I actually said that rather clearly above, and it seems to me very, very interesting that you so quickly seemed to take a position attempting to cast me in a bad light for not doing something which I rather clearly indicated would need something else done first, specifically, sending me the e-mail so I could have an address to send the information to. John Carter (talk) 21:14, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

@John Carter: I wasn't trying to cast you in a bad light at all. You said you'd send whatever documents you found "to anyone who sends me an email" (I didn't think that was directed at me), and you had said that it will be a few days before you got those sources, so I was agreeing to postpone any decision making until you got access to them. So I will send you an email and forward whatever you send me to Hijiri. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 22:21, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

I am rather thunderstruck that you didn't think that you qualified as "anyone," and have to wonder how, well, "anyone," could reasonably think that. John Carter (talk) 22:44, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Well in my books the term “devout Buddhist” must certainly go and be replaced by “Buddhist and member of Kokuchūkai”. As the history of this article shows all what can be agreed on is his Kokuchūkai membership that some might quite rightfully regard as a flare of adolescent behaviour and which he seemingly distanced himself from. If that is so and if he indeed distanced himself from it later on off goes the term “devout” as his maybe adolescent membership is the only Buddhist encounter that can be proven. The rest of the lede is nothing I’d like to contribute towards at this point. --Catflap08 (talk) 20:44, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

"Devout Buddhist" definitely has to go, as it ignores the rather obvious fact that there are a number of Buddhist traditions which have wide disagreement with each other. There is no "default" form of Buddhism which can reasonably be described without further modification. That being the case, it might be reasonable to drop the stand-alone word "Buddhist" altogether. I don't know how often we use "Christian" as a stand-alone term around here either to describe anyone in recent history, because of the wide variations within the "Christian" heading that do currently exist. Granted, someone may well find me out wrong, of course. It might even make sense to say in the lede that he converted from Pure Land Buddhism to Nichiren Buddhism. And I think most readers know that people who actively "convert" from one group to another tend to have rather comparatively strong religious beliefs, so it might even be more informative to the average reader. Maybe saying something along the lines of his having converted to the Kokuchukai group of Nichiren Buddhism from Pure Land Buddhism, apparently in his late teens?, and later separating from that subgroup because of its extreme views, might be lengthy, but the best description and summary of that subtopic area. John Carter (talk) 21:47, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Okay, the article hasn't used the word "devout" anywhere in its text since before John Carter posted the above comment, but it's worth noting that "devout Buddhist" is the way in which Kenji is most often described, followed by "devout Nichiren Buddhist". "Member of the Kokuchukai" is actually pretty rare -- the Kokuchukai is usually referred to as a group he "visited", "joined" (the implication being that he left) or "frequented"; it's extremely rare to see his lifelong religious affiliation defined by the phrase "member of the Kokuchukai". It's extremely unclear what the users arguing that he was not "a devout Buddhist" want the article to say at this point, but it is a lie that his devotion was to the Kokuchukai rather than to the Lotus Sutra or Nichiren Buddhism -- he became a devout Nichiren Buddhist in 1915, and there's not a speck of evidence that he had anything to do with the Kokuchukai before 1920 (or, for that matter, after 1922). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:52, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Additionally, it is unsourced OR to say that Kenji's only recorded allegiance to Nichiren Buddhism was his membership in the Kokuchukai. He wrote a request to build a "Nichiren-shuu" temple in Hanamaki and his request was met. When he died his family buried him in the Pure Land temple where they were registered. When his family converted to Nichiren Buddhism in 1951 his grave was moved to that Nichiren temple. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:51, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Redrafting article

I'm working on fixing this article with as many reliable sources discussing Kenji's bio, writings, influences, legacy, etc., weighted according to the best-quality encyclopedic reference works to which I have access. I'm about halfway to sourcing everything in our current article that can be verified in Keene, and when that's done I'll collate with Kodansha, and the Japanese encyclopedias. Then whatever's left can be verified with other works.

When I started seriously editing this page in February it had three inline citations. The draft currently has fifty-six and counting.

Anyway, for those who want to help (and don't want their interim edits accidentally overwritten), the draft has been moved and is now here.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:38, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

I object to that approach.

Please edit the article in a piecemeal manner so that it is possible for other editors to engage here, on the article space.

You are starting to cause me to spend too much time checking your aggressive approach here, and I see that you removed the mention of Kokuchukai from the lead. There is obviously no consensus for that, and I really don't want to spend another sentence asking you to edit in a more collaborative manner.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 10:49, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

You mean "please don't fix the many problems with the article"? At present the only section of this article that is properly sourced is the religious views section that I wrote two months ago and hasn't changed much since. And like I demonstrated above, this article has only had its text significantly and viably altered two other times in the last 730 days, once by Shii (who likely only spent about five minutes posting what was in whatever book he was reading at the time) and Sturmgewehr88, who himself stated that his edit took 20 minutes. Fixing an almost completely unsourced article 2,000+ words in length is a big job. If I make a piecemeal edit myself, my edit will immediately be reverted by wikistalker, and I will need to come back here and convince you to make the edit in my stead so that said wikistalker will automatically approve the edit. If I add sources to 90% of the unsourced material in the article, my wikistalker will be unable to revert me in good faith.

Additionally, Nishidani has given his blessing for this, Dekimasu also expressed interest in radically altering how the sections are laid out, my draft was patrolled and approved by Sturmgewehr88, and a radical overhaul of the whole article was actually suggested by Icuc2. You are the only one so far to express any doubt over this approach.

Also: what do you mean by my "aggressive approach"? The only edit I made to this article that you expressed opposition to was a removal of the word "nationalism" from the lead; you were joined in your opposition by one other user; you then U-turned and removed the nationalism reference yourself, and for whatever reason that one user hasn't opposed you like he opposed me. Your own edits to this article have indicated that you are not actually interested in fixing the article's poor focus, or don't see the problems with the article as it is, in which case I would advise you to just stay out of our way.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:21, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

I encourage you to continue to build the article, as did Nishidani, but I don't want to hear another word about Wikistalking as an excuse for anything, sorry.

In your so-called re-drafting you have already attempted to incorporate (by deleting) material from the lead that you have failed to get consensus for here, that is a form of WP:GAMING as far as I'm concerned.

--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 12:32, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

As for Kokuchukai in the lede: that is not resolved yet, because you didn't let me reformat the RFC question. The only two users who have clearly indicated that they favour including the reference to the Kokuchukai in the lede are you and John Carter; Sturmgewehr88 and Nishidani each made a single off-hand remark about how Kokuchukai belongs (might belong?) in the lede, while arguing against implying that Kenji was a "nationalist". If you want to include a reference to the Kokuchukai in the lede, then we can continue discussing it as a discussion of whether or not Kokuchukai should be named in the lede. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:37, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Firstly, I apologize for reverting your edit. We had an edit conflict. It was an accident. You also reverted my own alteration to my wording, so as far as I am concerned we are even.

Anyway, I reverted my own removal of the Kokuchukai reference. It has never been explicitly supported by consensus one way or the other, but I'm willing to keep discussing it with you until one of us changes our mind or someone else agrees with one of us.

As for wikistalking: how do you explain the fact that when I made an edit it was reverted multiple times, but when you made the exact same edit it was accepted? Or the fact that the only properly sourced section of this entire article right now is the religious views section I wrote, and it is also the only one that has had every word combed over it and accused of being "POV" or "OR"?

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:46, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm not interested in your dispute, and the next time you bring it up here I will report you for violating the IBAN and disrupting the encyclopedia, as I have just commented at the AN/I. The IBAN prevents reverting each others edits, I believe.

For contentious edits, get consensus first, and in doing so, present supporting sources and your reasoning to facilitate discussion. Edits that are not contentious aren't likely to garner a negative reaction. The question of whether Kokuchukai belongs in the lead seems settled for the moment, and it is certainly not a point you are going to change unilaterally.

--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 13:11, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I will get consensus first. For contentious edits. That's why I self-reverted the removal of the Kokuchukai reference in the lead when you expressed discomfort with it. But if you think radically expanding the article based on a combination of all the best sources in the field, and adding sources to a very large amount of unsourced (and therefore potentially inaccurate) statements, is "contentious" then ... I don't know what to say to you. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:20, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

And this thread is about the article redraft, not about whether the Kokuchukai should be name-dropped in the lead. Please stop bringing it up here. I am willing to discuss it with you, but in a different thread. Now, if you have any other problems with my proposed changes, please edit the draft, or talk them over here. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:22, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

@Ubikwit: just repeating what I said at ANI, Hijiri is refering to John Carter, whom he does not have an IBAN with (although one would be a good thing). ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 14:51, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

I really like the wording of the redraft, but I see you added a few citation needed tags and there are still sections that are completely unreferenced. However, once a few more sources are added I would support moving it to the article page. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 14:57, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

It's not done yet. If it were, I would be overlaying it on the article. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:06, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

A little suggestion (not directed at anyone in particular). In the spirit of Kenji Miyazawa, whose page this is supposed to be, could everyone try and pursue this revision without all the mud-slinging? How about everyone adopting a little Buddhist perspective--whatever brand you have available--and not make this all about "me, me, me," and "you, you, you?" How about focusing on the article itself? Maybe try to write your discussion points here without using the first and second person pronouns at all. That will be a helpful start. It will also be nice if people would try to make revision suggestions that manage to retain other people's contributions. But I'd very much like to see some substantial revisions to this article, mainly in the form of additional content, restructuring, and new sections dealing with Kenji's work.

Given the level of acrimonious feeling that has developed around this article (somewhat ironically, given its subject) it seems obvious that such a revision will need to be done very tactfully. I think everyone would agree that if Hijiri88 can manage this it would be little short a miracle. Some of Hijiri88's new content does looks promising. The sections still don't feel quite right to me, though. I think for this group of editors it's going to be necessary to get consensus for the sections before trying to fill in all the content.

My own interest at the moment is to see an area set up for his literary works to be properly discussed and I would still like to see that separated from the biography, i.e. not framed as "Literary career" which implies connection to his life, but perhaps "Literary works", and divided by genre (fiction and poetry). I don't feel that "early works" and "later works" is particularly useful division, since no claim is being made that there is any great difference between the two. I am also doubtful that "style" deserves a special section; I would like to see style discussed in a more general framework that will allow for other characteristics besides style to be included; there's also the problem of style of his fiction and style of his poetry being two entirely different questions. "Influence on later writers" isn't carrying its weight at this point and probably what is necessary is something more general along the lines of "Reception."

I picked up Makoto Ueda's long chapter on Kenji's poetry today and at some point I'd like to put in some of his quotable pronouncements.--Icuc2 (talk) 15:29, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

I was actually thinking that about the genre-divisions rather than the timeline myself, but then we're back at the chronological mess and where to put "he began writing in earnest during his 1921 stint in Tokyo". Under your proposal, it would be difficult for our readers to figure out when he wrote what, and just as difficult for us as editors to figure out what to put where.

As for putting mud-slinging aside -- that's what I've been asking for for over a week. The problem is that some users who are not presenting any ideas whatsoever for how to improve the article are either reverting every edit I make, nitpicking my wording for even the slightest hint of POV/OR, and generally being unhelpful. As I pointed out above, in the last two years this article's text has been expanded a total of three times: once when Shii added a short sentence about how his works came to be published posthumously; once when I added the section on his religious views; and once when Sturmgewehr88 summarized the current text of the article to form the current lead. In this context, where neither Ubikwit nor John Carter have expressed any particular love for the current wording/layout/unsourced-format of the article, nor did they themselves contribute anything to its current state -- in fact no one has contributed much in that sense in over two years -- I can't possibly understand how adding sources and expanding the article to cover topics that you and others have expressed a desire to see the article cover could be controversial, apart from the fact that one or two users have apparently convinced themselves that if I wrote it it must be POV/OR.

Also, note that I didn't open this thread here so I could continue to get harangued about the Kokuchukai. I give even less of a damn about the Kokuchukai than Kenji apparently did in the last ten years of his life. I'm not here to discuss the Kokuchukai.

This thread is for discussion of the redraft of the article. I like Icuc2's suggestions for the redraft, but I think they may be impractical: Icuc2, there was a reason I invited you to edit the draft if you have such ideas. ;)

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 16:53, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Icuc2: I think part of the problem with your very reasonable suggestion above is that certain people seem to make a habit of rather self-centered activity around here. However, I myself would agree to the idea. If you or anyone else wanted the various reference work articles which I have so far managed to pick up, or any of the newspaper and magazine and academic journal articles I am going to at least look for over the weekend, drop me an e-mail so I can forward them to you. I obviously don't know what if any such articles I will find on the various databanks I am going to check, but I will probably first download them myself and then try to determine the ones which are either in the case of the journals and magazine articles most substantial and/or most widely cited, and in terms of the newspaper type sources the ones which contain the best coverage of the topics they cover if they are not already covered in the journals or magazines. Of course, I could also forward the whole set of works I might find, but I have a feeling that there might be rather a lot of them, and it might be easier to just read the ones which say something unique or which are counted among the better sources. It might also be worth noting who first requested that article talk page rules be respected, and who most regularly indulges in adding comments which have little if anything to do with developing the article, and how many such comments were made by them, even in the last week. John Carter (talk) 16:56, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

@John Carter: "certain people seem to make a habit of rather self-centered activity around here... who most regularly indulges in adding comments which have little if anything to do with developing the article..." You really shouldn't try to project your own flaws onto other people. While others are making useful and productive edits to the draft, or at least discussing useful and productive editing, we can just leave you here on the talk page to rant about whatever "violation" you percieve next until you're ready to join us. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 18:27, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

It just seems highly ironic that a page about one of the most selfless Buddhist-influenced writers should be so strongly characterized by personal attacks and self-defenses. In Buddhism the self is an illusion, so there should be nothing here to attack or defend. Adopting an impersonal perspective would be more in keeping with the subject's philosophy and would also help get this revision done.

About the redraft, thanks for changing the title of the last section to "Literary works" rather than Literary career. I can see some justification for a section on his early writings now as these are being characterized as juvenilia. However I still hold that the later works section should instead be "poetry" and "fiction." It doesn't make sense to address these together because they seem to me so different. And style can be incorporated into those sections. And that something like "reception" could include influence on later writers within a much broader frame. Most critics seem to agree that Kenji's reception history is an important story given his lack of fame during his life and the extraordinary rise of his posthumous reputation. That should be the main subject of a reception section, which could also focus on ways his works have been used, including influence on other writers.--Icuc2 (talk) 23:49, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I'll bite: You mean "juvenilia" in the traditional, Latin sense of "works produced while the author was young", rather than in an Anglicized sense (as in, influenced by "juvenile") of "works produced while the author was young, that are not refined", right? If so, then wasn't the title "early works" a giveaway from the start? If so, then ... yeah, given Keene's critical, even dismissive attitude toward Kenji's early tanka, and the fact that his is the only opinion currently cited (and taking up about a third of the section), I can see how you would come to that conclusion, but I'm loath to include any kind of quality judgements in the article that aren't explicitly attributed (in the text, not just in the refs) to the opinions of external sources. You don't actually think "early works" gives that impression, do you? Because if someone can reasonably read it that way as currently written I'm gonna have to go find a scholar who loves Kenji's early tanka to balance it out... Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:07, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps juvenilia is not the right word since he was in his twenties, but I had the impression from somewhere that he had sort of renounced his earlier work or at least expressed a sense of distance from them; if that's not the case, it might be harder to justify a separate "early works" section. Unless perhaps the change in his religious or other thinking was significant enough to justify a separation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Icuc2 (talk • contribs) 08:58, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Well, right now the section is mostly about his tanka, a poetry form that he certainly does seem to have largely renounced later on, and he appears to have written most of those in his teens. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:25, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

@Icuc2: Wait, did you specify to split the later works section by genre in your previous post? If so: shit, sorry. I agree with you there, and it wouldn't be too difficult to make that change. The reason I haven't already done so is that the source I've been using for the first runover is Keene, since he's the best and most thorough "encyclopedic biography" (as in, similar in structure to what we want this article to look like), but his coverage of Kenji's fiction is deficient. For whatever reason, he decided to classify our subject as a "poet who wrote fiction" rather than a "novelist who wrote poetry", and so relegated him to volume IV of his History, so Kenji got stuck in the chapter on "modern-as-opposed-to-tanka/haiku poets who happen to have died before 1980", or something arbitrary like that. I'll make the change later today (bus ride from Sendai to Tokyo with wifi -- GW!!) and the Talk:Kenji Miyazawa/Hijiri88 redraft#Fiction section can be expanded on once I'm done plundering Keene and move on to Kodansha and the rest.

What do you feel about "Poetry", "Fiction" and "Other writings", though? The collection of Nichiren's sayings, the letters, the translations and so on don't fit neatly under either "poetry" or "fiction", and calling them "non-fiction" isn't really adequate either.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:36, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Also, does anyone have a problem with my earlier mentioned "January 1921" cut-off date for "early" and "later"? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:41, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

No doubt my fault for not understanding the point of treating his early works separately.

Keene is a good starting point to establish some standard positions but there are plenty of other fish in this sea and we ought to include more of them. I'd like to make some use of Hiroaki Sato's Selections, particularly Sato's long introduction. This would seem to me to be as close to a standard edition as there is at the moment. BTW someone has put the whole book on line here, and it's also available on Project Muse and JStor. Also there should be some discussion of Gary Snyder's translations; there are enough competing translations that it might be helpful to offer some history and comparison of them. I don't find anyone claiming that Snyder was influenced by Miyazawa but it seems to me rather likely that he was.

A note to Ubikwit about objections to the draft: I do think this is the only way we can do any serious reorganization, which I think is necessary. If the draft can't get consensus as a whole, we could always incorporate parts of it piece by piece after discussion. There will be less pressure this way as we can all kick it around (non-violently I hope) until everyone's reasonably happy with it and then put it online.--Icuc2 (talk) 05:02, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Edit conflict.'

@User:Icuc2: You are right, of course. I'm just aiming to go through all the general "encyclopedia-biography"-type sources first to make sure we have a solid frame, to which we can later attaching other material sourced to more specialized literature. I'm getting Keene out of the way first because he's the biggest -- the other ones I have access to at the moment are each around a page or less, Keene is nine pages. (I have other reasons for wanting to get the English-language sources summarized and added before even the Japanese ones I already mentioned in the RFC, but that's peripheral.) You are free to get a head start on the other stuff. Like I said, Keene's coverage of Kenji's children's stories is miserable, so that might be a good place to start.

As for discussion of translations, I agree with you completely, but that's not my top priority at the moment, and maybe not for this article. Most of Kenji's translators seem to be mostly notable as Kenji's translators, so discussing them in the Kenji bio article when they have their own articles is a bit weird, and most of his works that have been translated (many times!) already have, or should have, their own articles in which to include discussion of the translations.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:27, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with having a draft for brainstorming, etc., but as soon as something that is obviously against the Talk consensus and has been the subject of a contested RfC is removed, then that changes the nature of the endeavor. It seems that normal Talk discussion--like this--and editing the article as it becomes clear that there is a consensus for one sort of presentation or another regarding whatever material is under discussion seems like the more straightforward collaborative approach. We already have an article, and that is where the focus should be, not requiring editors to monitor a draft that is being threatened to be unilaterally used to replace the article circumventing normal editing procedures.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 05:25, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

I would be inclined to agree with this normally, but the "normal editing procedures" seem not to be working extremely well with this article. The situation has developed to the point where even minor changes produce so much disputation that nothing ever moves forward. The process being proposed is somewhat unorthodox but not really outside the realm of normal editing procedures. If Hijiri88 fails to get adequate consensus for a proposed new version, it will simply be reverted, as he well knows. I myself have some doubt that the alternative version will achieve consensus support, but even if it doesn't, the attempt to construct an alternative version should allow us to consider some new ideas that would never be allowed through the usual incremental process, and these could then be imported into the article by the usual process.--Icuc2 (talk) 06:05, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

I don't think it's really that unorthodox. I did it with a whole bunch of classical Japanese poets recently, and with the Kokuchukai article (the latter with an off-wiki draft written in Notepad, though...). The only thing different about this from those cases is that there was a huge fustercluck conflict about one or two peripheral points that led to the conclusion that we should be devoting more effort to actually making this article about a Japanese poet and children's author discuss his poetry and children's literature. So I took the draft out of my userspace and opened it up to editing by everyone so that I wouldn't step on toes this time. The other articles were stubs edited by one user the better part of a decade ago and hadn't even been discussed since, but I figured that doing the same thing as I had been doing on those pages, in the shadows, mostly off-site and so fast and sudden no one would have a chance to respond, would cause problems here. If there are any legit problems with some parts of the redraft, Ubikwit and whoever else have ... probably at least another week to tell me about them so I can move to accommodate them, because the draft isn't being overlaid until at least one of us is happy with it, I'm probably going to be the first one who is happy with it, and that's not happening for a while yet. I already accommodated the one problem with the Kokuchukai reference in the lead, and if there are any other problems they can be discussed -- hell, you can even revert me if you like. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:38, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Oh, shit, I totally forgot to say: My goal here is to basically do with this article what I did with the Ono no Komachi article, which is to take an essentially unsourced piece of dubious interest to a reader interested in what makes the subject notable, and radically expand it, sourcing (accurate and verifiable material), tagging (material that is probably accurate but not verifiable with what we have on hand) or removing (material that is, based on our sources, probably inaccurate, or useless to our encyclopedia article) that was already there. I used Keene for the Komachi article, since Keene is one of the best sources available in English, and easily the best source I had on hand, for pre-1600 JLit of all genres, expanding slightly on it with some other reputable Japanese and English works I had in my house; with this article we're going to use whatever we have available to make it the best it can be (at least partly because Kenji is a modern Japanese author who Keene chose to classify as a poet, meaning his coverage of him is not the best; if Kenji had been covered in Keene's Vol III it would have been different, but alas...). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:07, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Edit conflict: Haven't read Icuc2's comment yet.

@User:Ubikwit: To what are you referring? The only things that have been the subject of any discussion on the talk page (let alone reached a clear consensus) are "was Kenji a nationalist", "should 'nationalism' be in the lead", "should 'the Kokuchukai' be in the lead", "how long was Kenji a member of the Kokuchukai" and "what influence did Nichiren-shugi/nationalism/Kokuchukai philosophy have on his writings". The draft so far has hardly touched any of this material. As Icuc2 and Nishidani have pointed out, all of that's pretty peripheral to what our article should actually be about, and it's a bit of embarrassment -- for all of us -- that so much talk page discussion has been wasted on these peripheral points. The point of the redraft is to fix this by introducing more discussion of his writings, his style/themes, his literary influences, his biography before 1920 and after 1921, and his legacy (literary and otherwise). And to add sources to everything that was already here, since until March the article was essentially unsourced, and even now pretty much everything except the "Religious views" section (which is largely remaining untouched) is unsourced. You expressed concern that one tiny, insignificant edit to the draft that I hadn't thought twice about might violate the talk page consensus, and so I reverted it. Do you have any other problems with the redraft? If you have any specific concerns to discuss, you have plenty of time to do so: as per my reply above to Icuc2, I'm not in favour of overlaying the redraft onto the article proper until we've gone through at least the other encyclopedia articles, and so far I'm just a little over halfway through Keene.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:27, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

I'd like to propose the following new structure for section titles and would like to have everyone's opinions about it:

• 1 Biography
  • .1 Early years
  • .2 Family and friends
  • .3 Religion
  • .4 Professional life
  • .5 Agrarianism
  • .6 Illness and death
• 2 Writings
  • .1 Early works
  • .2 Later poetry
  • .3 Later fiction
  • .4 Other writings
• 3 Reception
• 4 Notes
• 5 Bibliography
  • .1 Notable works
  • .2 Critical studies
• 6 External links
• 7 See also

I'm hoping for the simplest possible structure that will include everything we need to include with the least redundancy, and that will allow for future expansion. Please give it some serious thought.--Icuc2 (talk) 07:16, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

@User:Icuc2: So ... dropping the independent style, themes, influences (both forward and back) sections and the lists? In the long run I approve of the latter, but ... I added those other ones for you. >.<

But for the chronological/genre split I very much prefer your suggestions to what is there now.

Also ... that's an awful lot of stuff to read through before we even get to discussion of his writings ...

But the overall biography structure and section titles are nice. My one concern is one I already expressed two months ago, that the current discussion of his religion (especially in my expanded draft) is very much centered on the conditions surrounding his death, burial, and later removal, which might introduce an unfortunate element of neta-bare if move up before discussion of his death, but would look very much out of place in what is supposed to be a discussion of his "illness and death". Maybe it would be slightly less out of place if there was an "illness" section followed by a "death and burial" section, but that seems somewhat morbid.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:45, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Missed your "reception" section, so I guess that solves the lack of an "influence on later writers" section. But what about the current "legacy" section? The fact that there is a museum devoted to his life and work, and several railways and buildings named after him and his writings, seems a bit weird to call "reception". Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:48, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

An "awful lot of stuff to read through" before the writings doesn't bother me. People can skip ahead. But I'm not saying we shouldn't mention literary works at all in biography, just that I'd like to separate out the biographical aspects of the writing (which includes most of what is there now) from the literary aspects.

I was somewhat divided about putting religion and agrarianism in the biography rather than treating them as themes towards the end, which earlier had seemed to me desirable. But they do seem to me to be topics with strong biographical connections. And considering the interest people have in the religious questions, it might be better to get to them earlier rather than later. And it simplifies the structure to do it this way.

Separating illness from death is certainly possible if there's enough material about his death. But anything post-funeral should probably go in the "reception" section. If there's enough material to fill out a death section I'd be fine with that, though I think "illness and death" reduces the morbidity factor somewhat.--Icuc2 (talk) 08:35, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Umm... his family converting to his religion and moving his grave to a different temple as a result should go in the "reception" section? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:25, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

That's not as weird as it sounds. The family seems to have changed its attitude towards a number of Kenji-related subjects, notably religion, after he became suddenly posthumously famous. That story will be easier to tell as part of the reception story.--Icuc2 (talk) 11:14, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

I neglected to mention "dropping the independent style, themes, influences sections and the lists?": style, themes, influences will naturally find their place in the literary discussion; that offers more flexibility than confining the discussion of those subjects to single sections. The lists should be incorporated in the bibliography. It's not clear that the current section "translations" has a reason to exist since pretty much everything in English is a translation if it's not a critical work. The current "notable works" also needs to be reworked as most of the current links point to anime adaptations.--Icuc2 (talk) 08:44, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

As to removing the separate sections on style and themes: I'm cool with that. No work to be done at the moment, though, since those sections are still almost empty. I don't like the idea of incorporating the lists into the bibliography; the bibliography is for books we cite in the article as our sources, and for other books readers can go to get more information on the subject of this article (Miyazawa Kenji). I wouldn't be averse to simply removing the "translations" list, since several of them appear to be obscure/self-published/dubious (Dragon and the Poet's introduction, at least, has pretty terrible English, as discussed in the March RFC). I hadn't actually looked at the links, but if that's true... ugh... Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:25, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Which list(s) are you interested in keeping, and where? There's already a lot of naming of titles in the article itself, which makes the lists somewhat redundant. It's true some people might be frightened of bibliographies, but is simply naming titles without explanation really more appealing? The new sections for poetry and fiction will be a great place for titles, offering opportunity to include useful contextual information about them.--Icuc2 (talk) 11:14, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Icuc. let Hijiri simply go along with his rewrite, Correct me if I err, but I don't think you have ever edited the article. This one suffers from huge talk, and little active improvement, and deciding the ideal form it should or might take abstractly, before any of the actual drafting is done, is only a hindrance.Nishidani (talk) 12:06, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Nishidani, I beg to differ. I am planning to put in some new furniture once the house has been remodeled.--Icuc2 (talk) 12:27, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

@User:Icuc2: I'm not frankly interested in keeping either of the two lists. I just don't want to get rid of the list of his noteworthy works just yet. Not until we can work out a prose narrative about them. And for the record I did try to work in your suggestions for biography subsections: it's tough, it really is. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:48, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Icuc2, actually you didn't 'beg to differ'. Your plan on your own words waits (that is the temporal implication of 'once') for Hijiri's house construction. Few can build, everyone can tinker or decorate. Unless you can offer a complete redraft, just sit tight until he's done it, and then like everyone else, go ahead and offer improvements.Nishidani (talk) 15:15, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Anyway, the Kodansha sources is ... iffy. It looks nice and glossy, but when you try to summarize what it says and put it into a new context you realize that a lot of means very little by itself. My point about "visions" might actually make more sense than what the source says. Japanese encyclopedias next. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:21, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Redraft2

Ok, everyone, I doubt everyone will be thrilled about this, but I've set up an alternative Redraft here. This preserves all content from the first Redraft, except a few lines from the lede, in the revised structure I proposed but which Hijiri 88 thinks is not feasible. So have a look and let's see if it is. There are only a couple of new sentences, mainly in the lede, but I'm going to put in some more material which I'll mark in bold in case we don't go with this structure.--Icuc2 (talk) 14:38, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

I wish you'd mentioned this before doing it. I've already added a whole bunch of new stuff the redraft1. This is a really bad idea, and it apparently originated in a misunderstanding. I agreed with most of your ideas above, and I just thought it was too much trouble for me to rearrange the biography section in accordance with your recommendations. You were (and still are) perfectly free to do the section rearranging on redraft1 yourself (hence why I specifically invited you to). I suggest you redo your changes on the original one I just updated further, and you redirect the first.Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:56, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Oh, shit. You took the Kokuchukai out of the lead. You don't take the Kokuchukai out of the lead. That won't make you any friends around here. They'll scratch your eyes out, they will. It's the consensus, after all.

Also, there are a whole bunch of formatting problems with your version. You moved the religion section up, and now the several "see belows" are wrong, one has been moved into the section to which it links, and all those links are broken because you changed the name (well, I mean, technically they're broken on my version too, since they link to the main article rather than the draft, but you get my meaning). It would be in all of our interests that we all work on the same draft to keep shit like this from happening.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:04, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Hijiri, please ignore this. I had the same problem with the Shakespeare Authorship Question. The article was stuck, and an admin allowed two different editors to rework their versions, and the two were compared at the end. Independent eyes will invariably pick the best version. Don't get distracted by alternative drafts or arguments: show us your best version (I might help you edit it), and then Icuc2 and yours can be compared. If Icuc does a better job, fine. On the face of it, however, he has a larger amount of rewriting to do than yourself.Nishidani (talk) 15:19, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

@User:Nishidani: Yeah, but see in this case Icuc2 and I actually agree on his proposed changes. He misunderstood my saying that it was too much work for me to do it as saying that I didn't think it was a good idea, and went ahead and forked it up, so that now we have one version with slightly better "sectionination" (like pagination?) and the other with more material and the older section divisions. My problem is that everyone except you and Sturmgewehr88 still seem to be interpreting the redraft I started working on as "my redraft" that they aren't allowed touch, so when I ask someone else to make the changes themselves they start a whole new draft. It's messy, and pointless, because we are actually all in agreement here. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 16:16, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

@Hijiri88: I'm going to ignore the snark and just make a couple of observations.

First, if the consensus becomes that it is not necessary to mention Kokuchukai in the lead, then that would be the consensus. Thus far--as I don't have time or sources--I've seen that Stone, Keene, and Holt (in particular) discuss his relationship with the group; furthermore, I've seen that he was buried in his families Pure Land sect temple and then his grave was moved to a Nichiren temple after his family subsequently converted. I've also seen that he tried to convert them personally before going to Tokyo, apparently. It has also been mentioned that he was affiliated with no other religious group.

Meanwhile, while I don't see any characterization of him as a nationalist--aside from a rhetorically uncertain suggestion in a source cited here called Nationalism in Ulysses and Kenji Miyazawa's Works--I don't agree with your statement that clearly the fact that he was a member of the group is irrelevant.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 15:42, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Collapsing own reply because I'm just as sick of discussing this topic as I was last time I responded to a remark on it.

Ubikwit, you need to learn to take a joke. I really don't care that much about this issue, and Kenji is one of my idols. I don't get the impression you care as much about Kenji as I do, but you seem to take the issue of whether the Kokuchukai is mentioned in the lead much more seriously than I do. I was only kidding; it's a minor issue, and deserves to be treated with a grain of salt and an occasional bit of snark. But you are wrong if you still think that consensus is to include the Kokuchukai reference in the lead. There was no consensus on that point, partly because you overruled my attempt to form a new RFC question to establish a consensus on that point. User:Sturmgewehr88, who agrees with you that the lead should mention the Kokuchukai, acknowledges that that was not the consensus, because that wasn't what was under discussion. You are wrong about the sources, too: Keene doesn't discuss the Kokuchukai -- he mentions it in the same manner as the (many, authoritative, mainstream) Japanese sources that say "上京し、国柱会を訪問。". He even refers to them as "a Nichiren society", in a manner that one would need to be reading the Kokuchukai into him based on other sources in order to see the Kokuchukai there. As for Stone: she doesn't discuss Kenji's relationship to the group; she mentions the group's relationship to Kenji, and in a manner that argues against defining Kenji as "a member of the Kokuchukai" as our lead currently does. The only source you have consulted that agrees with you is Holt, and Holt is by his own admission on the fringe. Again, you could just as easily say "cutting edge" -- I don't think Holt, Ueda and Iguchi are bad people trying to defame an Iwatean icon. They are scholars doing their job and expressing their honest opinions. It may or may not be an accident of history that most other scholars say that they are wrong, and history might change in the future, but Wikipedia isn't the place to argue that. Anyway, I have been trying to put this topic on backburner for a while, but you keep bringing it up, to the point of going back and looking for diffs from me from over two months ago? What is the point? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 16:08, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

"Those who seek three vehicles, / Should they have doubts or regrets, / The Buddha will remove them now, / So that they vanish and none remain."—Lotus Sutra--Icuc2 (talk) 16:04, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

@Hijiri88:, the reason I went ahead and started this is that you seemed unconvinced about my structural proposal so I thought I would set it up as a demonstration. Sometimes it's hard to imagine how something will actually look until you see it set up. And although I could have gone ahead and done it on your redraft, it would have been troublesome to revert, especially if you were working on it simultaneously. If you are worried about developing two versions we can try to unify. At this point, though, no one has persuaded me that my new structure doesn't work, so if you'd like to make that argument this might be a good time to do it.--Icuc2 (talk) 23:38, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

I explicitly expressed interest in your idea, then when I tried to implement it I made a dog's dinner of it. I asked you to try it yourself (the clear implication being on the same page; you created a fork redraft and yours is also a mess. That's not the way to convince me or anyone else that your preferred layout can work. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:37, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

But if I had made my changes on version without getting your approval first, would you have been happier? I imagine you would have complained that I did too much. Anyway, I'll be happy to work out a unification strategy now if you like, and I'm perfectly willing to port my changes over to your redraft. But we need to resolve our different views on the structure before I can do that. And I'd also like to find out what degree of support there is for the shorter lede I'm proposing. I'm not strongly attached to the exact wording but I do feel the lede is being asked to do way more than a lede is supposed to do. Personally, I don't care all that much whether Kokuchukai is stuck into the lede; I don't believe it should be there, but if there's consensus to have it I wouldn't oppose it. My point is it's an issue extraneous to the rewrite so please don't even say a word about it.--Icuc2 (talk) 03:31, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

I think I would have preferred that, yes. But it's a moot point because I had already given you my approval anyway. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:56, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

If so, I must have misunderstood. Because you changed some of the sections in response to my suggestions, but not others, I thought that meant you were vetoing the others. If you're ok with my changes, I'll move them over to your page. But if there's some you're opposed to, let me know.--Icuc2 (talk) 04:07, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I can see how you would have drawn that conclusion, and I apologize if I sound like I'm criticizing you in this thread. I tried to implement all of your sections (except a few of the ones I explicitly expressed problems with above). The ones that were saved were the ones I could kinda figure out how to make work; the other ones I gave up on because implementing them without radically altering the text would have made the article nigh unreadable. I now think that merging "religious views", at least, into the "biography" section at least is nigh-impossible without removing some of the information therein. And if you want to remove some of the information therein I say good luck to you; I'm not about to let you make the article say he joined the 国柱会 without also saying he was devoted to the 法華経 rather than any particular group, and that he helped found a mainstream 日蓮宗 temple in which he was ultimately buried; I doubt John Carter and Ubikwit would let you away with removing the 国柱会 and the theory that he was a nationalist from the article altogether. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:43, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Hijiri88, please stop making comments about my motivations. I understand that Miyazawa is one of your "idols" (and an "Iwatean icon") and that you have a passion for the subject of the article.

Just remember that this is an encyclopedia, not a venue for your personal promotional ventures, regardless of how noble the cause.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 10:01, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

"Hijiri88, please stop making comments about my motivations ... this is ... not a venue for your personal promotional ventures, regardless of how noble the cause" Please read WP:KETTLE before making any more assertions that I am commenting about your motivations. I'm not commenting on your motivations -- I'm just saying you're wrong. Kenji is hardly ever described as "a member of the Kokuchukai" outside of sources published by the Kokuchukai. That is all that we can say for certain. And you are the only one who thinks that "consensus" supports naming the group in the lead, so please stop making this claim.

Now can we please stop talking about this until the rest of the article is cleaned up? If you don't want to help, then please stay out of our way.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:24, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

I will take the above as a consent to implement my proposed structure on the original redraft. I'll do it at some point tomorrow when there's a lull in the editing, since Nishidani seems to be in the groove at the moment and I'm not in any rush. If anyone has further thoughts on the proposed structure (which will be similar to what is here) I'm still open to reconsideration. On considering Hijiri88's comment that the religion section in the biography won't be adequate, I thought it made sense to move some of the material to the literary sections. Otherwise, the structure seems to me adequate for what is there now and likely to be there in the foreseeable future, so I will port it over into the main redraft tomorrow.--Icuc2 (talk) 13:37, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Well, it would certainly be much easier to implement your structure on redraft1 than to redo all the edits I made to redraft1 before I knew about the existence of redraft2 (or Nishidani's for that matter) on redraft2. And sorry about the ambiguity up to now. Maybe it's because I live in an objectively context-heavy culture (and grew up in a more context-heavy culture than most editors of English Wikipedia) but I thought I was giving you consent the first time you brought it up. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:58, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

No problem. It wasn't much trouble to run the second redraft and I'm glad to have been able to test it before screwing around with the original redraft. It's going to be a little trickier now to section the biography but I think it's still a good idea to do so. It's a rather long section now and will probably read more easily if sectioned. The Nishidani revisions have done a lot to improve readability. Some of the long paragraphs look like they want to be broken up again though.

"Those who further practice perseverance / And abide in the stage of self-control, / Will be of constant mind, / Even if subjected to ill-treatment. / They will continue to endure / Even if they are scorned and persecuted / By those who think, through their excessive pride, / That they have attained the truth."—Lotus Sutra--Icuc2 (talk) 15:51, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Basic restructuring of original redraft is now done. Biography and Religion sections will be the next stage, but I need to work on something else for a while. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Icuc2 (talk • contribs) 03:18, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Again, good luck discussing his burial and reburial before his illness and death... Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:37, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Oh shit I just realized! "Religion" can discuss his helping to establish the 身昭寺, and then "Illness and death" can discuss his burial as a callback to the earlier discussion. Ingenious! Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:44, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Usually biographies work best when separated into chronologically arranged topics. Pure chronology doesn't work well because people are usually doing many things more or less simultaneously, and pure topicality doesn't work well because people live their lives chronologically. There is always going to be some tension between these two ways of looking at lives, but usually things will fall into place without too much difficulty. Some chronological overlap between biographical sections will always be unavoidable. Religion is a bit of a problem to sectionalize here because religion permeates Kenji's whole life. But the point of his most intense religious activity is a natural point to place the topic, and some of the religion discussion should be split off into other periods of his life, or into the discussion of his literary works. All questions of Kenji and religion are related either to his life or his literary work, so in theory that division should work.--Icuc2 (talk) 04:33, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Entry into the Kokuchūkai

It is evident from Jon Holt's article (which, though an excellent gloss on his major work's imagery, fails to prove its case of continued fidelity to the Pillar of the Nation Society after 1921, nb) that Miyazawa proselytized for the Kokuchūkai as early as 1918, whereas many texts speak of him joining Tanaka's group in 1921 (perhaps they mean, the Tokyo chapter). This needs to be clarified.Nishidani (talk) 20:49, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Well, the date of his joining the group (or maybe just "proselytizing for the group"?) doesn't really affect the points I raised on Ubikwit's that the request of one or two users a few sections above that the article state that he was "a member of the Kokuchukai, not a devout Buddhist" is untenable. He helped found a 日蓮宗 temple in his hometown after 1921, in which he was ultimately buried, and he read the Lotus Sutra and converted to Nichiren Buddhism in 1915 (I may have been slightly off in my assertion that this was before the Kokuchukai was established, though). If you want to cite Holt as saying he joined in 1918 rather than 1920/21 in the article, fine. As long as we still name Holt as being one of the cutting edge scholars who consider Kenji to have remained devoted to 日蓮主義 until his death. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:26, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Misreading me, Hijiri. I don't want to cite anything, other than the ascertainable facts or viewpoints and (b) I mentioned Holt citing a letter from 1918 where he is described as trying to convert a friend to that society, and noted this is earlier than the usual 1921 date used for his 'joining' that group. It's an observation, not a desire. (c) Holt does not say he joined in 1918, so I couldn't cite that date in any case.Nishidani (talk) 07:38, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply I disagree with you. I meant to imply that it doesn't really affect the controversy that was going on a few sections up about whether Kenji was ever a follower of Nichiren Buddhism other than the group. The 1918 date still post-dates his 1915 conversion to Nichiren Buddhism, and the last attested association with the group still predates the founding of the Shinshouji. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:41, 5 May 2015 (UTC)