Kobayashi Hideo, one of the most excellent founders of criticism in 20th century Japan, has been regarded as a strong supporter of the Japanese war from 1931 to 1945. Because he had been an Anti-Marxist critic since his debut of 1929, many people looked upon him as a right-wing statist or at least a conservative thinker. He was indeed a conservative like as Michael Oakeshott, because he thought the role of politics was very small in human affairs. He did not live in the world of politics or statecraft, but lived in the world of art and literature. When the war between Japan and China began at 1937, he suddenly said he was already to die for the Japanese state as one of the Japanese people. But the Japanese state often disliked his writing about his travel around China during the war. Though he was apt to be silent and indulged in collecting old china after the war between Japan and USA happened, his very rare writing such as “Mujyo to iu Koto” (Nothing to be eternal) of that time (at 1942) would have been his dying message telling us a cultural heritage if he and his state had perished by that war together.

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