Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit
If the concept of Bushido didn't become popular until Japan's modernization (at the end of the 19th century)...how much of Japan's conduct in WW2 (notably, the fighting until death) can be attributed/blamed to this misinterpretation of samurai history?
Looking at the Wikipedia entry for Kamikaze [1], I was surprised to read that the concept of suicide attacks only became formalized late in the war (June 1944), rather than something ingrained in the Imperial Japanese fleet from even before the start of conflict.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze#Beginnings
OT: I really love the posted article's massively deep footer, which also looks good on mobile. I frequently have trouble designing nice footers around a long list of links and I'm bookmarking this site as a place to copy from.
I am not surprised. It seems that a certain subset of the European elite embraced the samurai as a symbol of what Europe lost with the shift from Feudalism to Democracies.
Note how you can see something of the same with how knights and related honor codes gets embraced by extremists across Europe (in particular in times of hardship).
Similarly, the post-ww1 British administrators of what became Irak elevated the bedouin on a pedestal[1]. And the region is paying the price to this day.
[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/2989a78a-ee94-...
I was immediately very interested by one of the references, which extensively compares five different versions of Nitobe's book: the original (English) and 4 translations (in Spanish, French and Japanese). They study the overall texts as well as side-by-side passages in detail, and show how the seemingly innocuous translations are each tainted by the motives and environment of each translator and author. I'm always fond of translation studies and this one is captivating.
English version here (the original is in Spanish... we'll have to trust the (apparently uncredited) translator on this one)
Fun (though unverifiable) fact: No one reads Inazo Nitobe, or that "Hagakure" thing in today's Japan. It looks like these are mostly for Westerner's consumption. "Bushido" today is often taken as some weird/quaint moral code that is often depicted comically. It could be interesting for a historical viewpoint, but I don't think these historic texts are very useful to explain the modern-day Japan. It's a bit like reading Jefferson while trying to understand Trump.
Every nation rewrites its history according to contemporary needs and cherry picks (or creates) sources to support it. A good example of today is Russia, where Stalin cult is resurgent and not so honorable history facts (pact with Hitler, Holodomor etc.) are being suppressed or played down[1].
I recently (3 months) started iaidô[1] in my Japanese university club, and one thing that struck me was how few "bullshit" talks we had about the discipline. In contrast, when browsing for clubs in my country, each website was filled with a last a few paragraphs saying how spiritual the art is, how it is all about discovering yourself and the truth of the universe.
People of my club are more interested in it because katana are cool than the bushidô spirit or something -- basically nobody ever talked about it. Anyway, when everybody train I cannot help to feel the underlying military spirit of the it, and how in a society like Japan it can quickly turn the way it turned in WWII.
Masaki Kobayashi made a couple of subversive films in the 1960's that present a very dark view of Samurai culture. These films [1][2] are excellent. [1] in particular is exquisite (and tied for the Jury Special Prize at Cannes in 1963).
[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056058 [2] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061847
Related, and an excellent write up on Shalin Monks: Demythologizing Shaolin Monks( https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4516 )
Other modern inventions that people think are ancient:
1) Scots wearing different patterned kilts to denote clans. This was mostly invented by Sir Walter Scott
2) Druid rituals. Druids were wiped out by the Romans, and the only accounts left of their rituals are Roman. What we now think of Druid rituals are a mixture of Roman writings and stuff made up in the 19th century.
So, the only academic paper in the sources in the post is a PhD thesis which appears to be the entire argument undergirding this post.
If you're interested in the subject, that might be a good place to start: https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/...
This is not such a unique story, same is for instance with yoga, no one in India really did yoga as we think of it today until the end of 19th century. Same story with the free masons, they were re-invented in 17th century with no evidence whatsoever of having any resemblance to the original order. One could also argue that pretty much all religions in the world also fall into this category.
Related but at a tangent - after a lifetime of interest in karate I came to realise that most of the stuff taught at karate is not practical.
Katas and karate punches and kicks - most of this better thought of more as dancing or ceremonial. A bit like Tai Chi - except that Tai Chi claims no real world martial value.
The myth remains however of karate being great self defence training.
Our local karate club is packed with ever more kids going every week to learn pointless moves, with parents thinking the kids are learning to defend themselves.
(I got through about half the article) I think making the analogy to Christianity and chivalry is simply a way for Nitobe to communicate the way samurai were percieved and it seems a bit dramatic to lay it all at his feet as some kind of grand manipulative agenda.
The Meiji era (and the Taisho era after it) were times of a very bizarre "formalization" of japanese culture. Like other comments mention, things like karate, kendo, ekinaba, art of sword making, etc. etc. were all formalized and unified under one umbrella at this time. Before say "karate" you'd have different schools teaching different martial arts under different names around the country.
I actually don't have a very good grasp on why this happened
Medieval War Principals meet modern weapons. People charged in with horses and protective amuletts at verdun. But where butchering a village was hard work in medieval times, modern weapons make it the flick of a switch. Add to that a culture where non-fullfillment of expectations is a huge shame and extererior pressure upholds all the norms, and you get japans behaviour during the ww2.
Chivalry, Bushido... the reality of knights wherever they cropped up and under whatever name, is that they abused people beneath them, and each other. A lot.
Bushido is a lie, Cowboys never had shoot outs, ninjas are overrated... At least pirates were sort of legit. Jury is still out on zombies.
I haven't read the book referred to in the article but I've for example read Mishima's Runway Horses - which also draws on historical circumstance from the Shinpūren Rebellion (1876). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinp%C5%ABren_Rebellion
Does that not exemplify similar values as us (Westerners) expect from the term 'Bushido'? Was the former a very rare isolated incident and not actually representative of samurai ethos?
Interesting that the author mentions that the term "Bushido" wasn't really a thing until last century. I was sure I saw the term mentioned in the writing of Miyamoto Musashi, but I assume that might have been a modern translators interpretation. (I read the English version, not the native Japanese one).
Also, some of my favourite graphic novels by Stan Sakai, Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima seem to mention the term too, but seeing as they are modern writers, I assume they 'westernised' their dialogue to suit.
Very much similar to the African concept of Ubuntu, which is nothing more than a modern popularized dreamed up concept.
The real bushido of modern Japanese, at least of generation born in 70-ies, is their work ethics. I worked with JICA team for 3 seasons, I never seen people that commited and self-sacrificing to work as these people were. And I hope, I will never see again. Life is so much more than work.
As in any time period, people are nostalgic for the past, especially when Japan's borders were opened (against their will) you're going to have that kind of reaching towards better days of 'ole. Sakura-colored glasses. There's also the art of Japan (and everywhere else). Art idealizing the "history" depicted, curators of that art (many of those part of religious institutes) and history communicating the history narrative, furthering the legend. It's a group effort this ruse of history. When the narrative sounds good and doesn't really contradict any other popular opinion, who is going to argue against it? 160 years later, here we are.
Does this apply to the 'Bushido Shoshinsu' written by Shigesuke? That's the one I'm familiar with with and it didn't seem to have any Christian undertones.
Citing Mamoru Oshii as a kind of expert on bushido is completely laughable. How does anything he says about the subject gives him any kind of authority ?
Stunning and eye-opening. I had no idea. Seems all cultures are pretty much the same on this front, then.
HN mods need to rewrite title to "Bushido seems not to be what people think it is."
I haven't read Nitobe, but Yamamoto Tsunetomo's Hagakure mentioned in the article, which was weirdly popular a few years back, is a horrible piece of propaganda written by someone who has about as much contact with war fighters as Nietzsche.
I've never read any of their blog posts before now, but Tofugu makes another product called WaniKani, that I've been using daily for 6 months now. It's basically flashcards for Kanji memorization, but it creates a regimen and has great third-party mobile applications that give you reminders to continue making progress. Without it, I definitely wouldn't have the will power to keep studying.