Bushido: the Soul of Japan
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This study will show how Inazo Nitobe's Bushido: The Soul of Japan illustrates the social, economic, cultural and political trends of Japan in the era it was written. The book was published originally in 1905. In effect, the study will examine the trends current at the turn of the century in Japan, focusing on the attitudes of the author (and presumably, other Japanese) toward the role of Bushido in the society and culture. Nitobe defines Bushido as "the unwritten code of laws governing the lives and conduct of the nobles of Japan, equivalent in many ways to the European chivalry." Of course, to be an important force in the nation, Bushido had to influence more than just the nobles, and more than just the warriors. The question to be answered, then, is what effect the chivalric, warrior code of Bushido had on the Japanese culture at the turn of the century, as described by Nitobe. It might be assumed by readers of the late 20th century that Japan almost a century ago was ruled strictly by the Bushido "way of the warrior," that the Japan of the early 1900s was the "old" Japan, with traditional ways of life (such as Bushido) intact. However, as we see from Nitobe and other sources, Japan even then was undergoing a period of industrialization, modernization and expansion of foreign affairs. All of these changes were in part results of Bushido, but they were also challenges to Bushido. Japan was absorbing cultural, political and economic influences from other Asian nations an
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rris---with feudalism in Japan, did not find Bushido an embalmed mummy, but a living soul. What it really met was the quickening spirit of humanity. Then the less [the people] was blessed of the greater [the warriors]. Without losing the best of her own history and civilization, Japan, following her own noble precedents, first adopted and then adapted the choices the world had to offer.
The people of Japan had a stronger code of Bushido than the leaders in the area of militarism. In Japan, however, militarism in the era under study was not simply or crudely a desire to conquer by force. To the contrary, it was a cultural, political, social, and even (as we shall see) economic expression of the code of the warrior.
As Nitobe writes, "Bu-shi-do means literally Military - Knight - Ways---the ways which fighting nobles should observe in their daily life as well as in their vocation." Nitobe concludes: "Bushido, then, is the code of moral principles which the knights were required or instructed to observe." As Bushido began to filter down to all classes and all people at the turn of the century, "It was an organic growth of decades and centuries of military career."
Certainly, as we have seen, the rise of political activism led
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Approximate Word count = 2461
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)
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