The Bushido Myth

this is something i've wanted to make a full video on for a long time in fact this is actually something i have talked about much in the past if you have been keeping up with my previous content the question of course regarding the term bushido and its authenticity yet although i have brought this discussion up from time to time i felt it was important to eventually put out this full video to hammer in the truth of the matter was bushido a real thing during the age of the samurai the answer as you will come to find out is much more complicated than you may think and although what i'm about to talk about may be nothing new for you to hear it is still important to say nonetheless but to understand the complexity of it all let's first backtrack a bit and refresh ourselves on what the word means and how it is often regarded in its modern context bushido has become a term that is synonymous with our idea of the samurai today but also an integral part of japanese history and japanese culture that somehow often gets ingrained into most foreigners image of modern japan and more specifically japanese people growing up in the united states and getting my hands on many different books about samurai or watching documentaries on the old version of the history channel it became very clear that my american books and documentaries were trying to paint japan and the samurai in a very iconic light a method that would create a stereotype of these common concepts of honor respect duty bravery and sincerity that were all found to be unique to japan heroics of a quote-unquote exotic asian warrior people long gone yet still shown to live on through japanese society today bushido is like many terms in japan a compound word combining the terms bushi and do pushy meaning warrior and do in this case meaning way thus the word bushido together creates a term that means essentially the way of the warrior this is a pretty common idea in every society that ever had a warrior class a similar concept would have existed a general idea of the way in which a warrior is supposed to exist not only in times of war but also in society as a whole and this brings us to the example that gets most commonly compared to bushido that being the medieval european concept of chivalry largely spun during the middle ages as a way for warriors to always act with honor courage and nobility it would eventually become intertwined with christianity and the stoic image of the medieval knight and although there was a lot written about chivalry and its ideals making it a definite real concept we can point to it is also important to remember that it was absolutely an informal idea it wasn't an official law or decree that had to be followed it was merely an idea of how to act with virtue an idea that became common throughout europe and while we can point to true and obvious examples of chivalry as a concept being recorded down throughout the medieval ages the idea of bushido in japan is much more difficult to decipher in many ways bushido is fair to say akin to chivalry as it is also composed of the same ideals of honor courage and nobility yet there is a clear and obvious problem with bushido and that is the fact that it is a term that not only arose at a time that is hard to judge its accuracy but also that it has a lot of concepts and ideas continually lumped into it as i stated earlier the common idea of the way of the warrior bushido is something that no doubt had always existed in one form or another but in trying to find the actual origin of simply the word bushido we don't actually start to see it written until the eido period very late in the actual age of the samurai and if there is one thing about the edo period that we have seen time and time again it is that it can be hard to judge the authenticity of certain things written during the edo period specifically when it pertains to events or concepts that happened or originated before the edo period in fact this is where we start to tread into the realm of eto period romances stories or writings of things during the edo period that embellish or exaggerate aspects of the past not to mention many tenants of bushido actually come from other writings from edo period samurai with examples such as mimo mimoto musashi who wrote the book of five rings and yamamoto tsune tomo whose writings were compiled into the hagakure originally we can see that the idea of bushido has a lot to do with confucian philosophy things like morality your role in society and how to live a just life once again similar aspects to what we can see from chivalry returning back to the idea of living with virtue these were absolutely not new concepts to the japanese or specifically the samurai as these same ideals had been ingrained into the minds of japanese warriors for centuries and of course there is the fact that the rise of the term bushido would not have been widespread throughout the edo period just because we start seeing it in some writings throughout the period does not mean it was a commonly used term throughout the country by that point it is important to note however the main reason why we are probably starting to see the term arise during the idol period the idol period was a time of great peace under the strongest of japan's three shogunates throughout the period the samurai came to take more and more of a unique role and appearance in society a fringe between a warrior class and an administrative elite many samurai began to lose their own self-image as a fighter while others tried desperately to cling to that outdated warrior role there are plenty of writings and depictions of the shifting face of the samurai throughout the period thus it would be clear why in this titular age we would start to see a callback to a warrior code of honor that the samurai should try to adhere to but to say that all samurai of this time followed this code of bushido is completely false for several reasons the first is that the very core ideals of bushido are concepts that the samurai would have already been living by for centuries sure you can then make the argument that they had always been really following bushido but the next thing that i'm about to bring up also discards that idea this is the fact that the term bushido continued to grow and grow as more concepts were thrown under its overarching reach as time went on in order to create a proper image of the japanese way of the warrior more and more codes or ideas that the summer had already been living by continue to be labeled as a core part of bushido keep in mind that there is no one written version of what bushido is or how a samurai should adhere to it just like chivalry bushido was informal it over time simply became a collection of aspects related to the lifestyle of the samurai incorporating philosophies principles and many other concepts that had long been part of samurai culture it even changed during the bushing war when many samurai tailored it to fit their own narrative of who they were loyal to the shogun or the emperor this finally brings us to after the fall of the samurai to the man who caused the most damage to the image of the samurai more than anyone else ever had nitobe inazo inazo had been the son of a samurai and after their fall had eventually grown fond of western cultures and in time converted to christianity and although his career would eventually lead him down the path of becoming a prominent japanese diplomat and statesman what he is often remembered for today is the book he published in 1900 called bushido the soul of japan the book was largely written only for western audiences as the main aim behind it was to reshape the idea of japan and the japanese people in the eyes of foreigners the book largely infused the history of japan and specifically the samurai with ideals akin to that of the christian knights of europe this is really where the comparison between bushido and chivalry starts to appear inazo's work would pay off as his book would become a best seller abroad succeeding in altering the narrative of japanese history for foreigners and conveying it in a manner that they themselves could better identify with and although at the time in japan the book was largely criticized and dismissed it wouldn't matter inazo's book had already won the hearts of people abroad and more dangerously gave us a false depiction a bushido that places it on the forefront of samurai culture throughout history imperial japan would also try to push their own radical nationalistic yet also nostalgic view of bushido and how it pertained to specifically victory on the battlefield yet it would still be inazo's work that can truly be attributed to having the most lasting effect this is why today the word bushido has become so inseparable from the samurai wherever you look from books to documentaries bushido tends to always be mentioned the only way to escape bushido is by viewing books and films that were written or made in japan as the japanese obviously understand the difference it does not change the fact however that foreigners will always like the concept of bushido even if their idea of it is wrong and this sadly has led to a plethora of misconceptions regarding it and samurai culture before making this video i did a quick search on youtube to try to see how many misconceptions i could find and oh boy there are a lot according to a lot of people's common understanding bushido had everything to do with any of the following including but not limited to samurai top-notch the way samurai wore their swords why samurai wore two swords the way samurai armor looks why samurai would commit sipuku why people think samurai never would retreat why samurai drank tea why samurai wrote haiku why some samurai became ronin why the samurai existed at all the truest thing we can say about bushido today is that it is largely an idea in retrospect an overarching term used to define the many codes practices philosophies and principles relevant in samurai culture so when it comes down to it we shouldn't say that the samurai followed the code of bushido that is completely false what we should say instead is the samurai followed what can be considered today the concept of bushido no that's not an opinion it's a fact

Channel: The Shogunate

Views: 149,829

Keywords: Samurai, Bushido, Japan, History, Military, Shogun, Shogunate, Warrior, Bushi, Way, Path, Soldier, Sengoku Jidai, Katana, Honor, Respect, Education, myth

Id: O5PJX1hdOPc

Length: 10min 45sec (645 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 10 2020