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Bushido
Dec 20, 2016 16:41:36 GMT -5
Post by Please Delete on Dec 20, 2016 16:41:36 GMT -5
Okay, topic up for debate, and I want to hear all sides: Bushido is basically 19th and 20th century nationalist propaganda, still undergirding Japanese society today, but does not really have relevance to pre-Edo studies. True or false and why? (and if anyone wants to get into discussions of Edo examples, too, I'm game). -Ii PS: For reference this is coming largely as I work to finish Oleg Benesch's Inventing the Way of the SamuraiPPS: I suspect that the answer is more nuanced than the black and white, with multiple "correct" answers depending on how people approach. This is more for exploring ideas than for being strictly right or wrong.
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Post by Sanada Terasu on Dec 20, 2016 17:22:28 GMT -5
I was under the impression that while Bushido is very out of period, there are still a social etiquette of how proper Samurai were to behave. This may have developed into Bushido, but I think it was more a circumstantial behavior. Considering my SCA persona is Sengoku/Momoyama, Honor is relative and victors determined what was right and wrong. I have read a number of quotes from Samurai who have stated that they were supposed to behave a certain way. Maybe it was needed more in a time of peace since during a time of war, morales were more "loose" to survive.
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Bushido
Dec 20, 2016 17:51:57 GMT -5
Post by Please Delete on Dec 20, 2016 17:51:57 GMT -5
So what do you think? Was there *a* code, or multiple codes? Were they applied to the entire bushi class, to all people, or individual families?
Also, for all the preaching by people about what you should do, how many people actually listened?
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Post by Ki no Kotori on Dec 20, 2016 23:16:37 GMT -5
Well, we know there were multiple "codes" of a sort. Take a look at "Ideals of the Samurai" by William Scott Wilson. It looks like the paperback is out of print, but there's a Kindle version available. In this book, Wilson translates 12 texts of guidelines of conduct, written both before and during the Edo period. Aside: this genre of writing is found in several societies throughout history. For example, the Biblical Book of Proverbs falls into this genre. _The Book of the Courtier_ by Baldassare Castiglione (1528) and _The Prince_ by Niccolò Machiavelli (1532) are Renaissance examples. It is found also in Muslim society, with the Qabus Nama (Mirror for Princes) by Kaykāvūs ibn Iskandar (about 1080).
Now these particular texts that Wilson included in his book were meant to stay within a family. Some of them do mention Chinese examples. Most of the advice is common-sense, practical things, the kind of things that would help a retainer during the course of his career. It doesn't come over as a particular "code" of conduct, but rather, just good plain advice.
I feel that works like Hagakure also falls within this genre. It is interesting to see that the advice of earlier samurai (who actually lived during wartime) is often less extreme than the philosophy that Hagakure propounds.
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Bushido
Dec 21, 2016 10:36:50 GMT -5
Post by Please Delete on Dec 21, 2016 10:36:50 GMT -5
I think a key point that Ki-hime hit on is the timeliness of the sources as well as variety. You can't take just one source and use it, but you need to look at a variety.
I've started to ease up on the Hagakure a bit as well--apparently most of what we read are abridged versions. There was a new translation, recently, and it is apparently a bit more nuanced than what we've seen in the past.
Which is another consideration: what translators choose to translate and *how* they translate them are important considerations.
What other sources of tradition do we see for the warrior class?
-Ii
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