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"Bushido."
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The Supreme Command of Our Forces is in Our Hands
The Restoration Edict of January 1868, which restored the political power of the emperor, was followed by a series of measures that abolished the warrior class (bushi) and established the supremacy of the imperial court in military matters. Drawing on ancient history and mythology, such as the military campaigns of Japan’s first (legendary) Emperor Jinmu, imperial apologists vilified the warrior class and accused it of “usurping” imperial authority for more than five hundred years. In this article, I show that the Imperial Japanese Army took a rather condescending view of the warrior rule of previous centuries and of “the samurai” as a whole. Although it may sound counterintuitive, the vilification of “the samurai” was a necessary precondition for the remilitarization of the imperial house, which had not been directly involved in military affairs since the fourteenth century. In addition, I demonstrate that it was World War II propaganda, particularly the propaganda directed at non-Japanese audiences, that shaped the pervasive notion of a connection between the historical “samurai” and the modern Japanese military. Following the Second World War, however, the emperor was once again demilitarized. He set aside the uniform of the supreme military commander, adopting civilian attire and becoming the foremost symbol of the “peace state.”
Journal Article
The Transnational Samurai
This article explores the reception and appropriation of the Japanese samurai in Italian nationalist and Fascist discourse from the early twentieth century to the far-right movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Through a close examination of figures such as Luigi Barzini Sr., Shimoi Harukichi, Giuseppe Tucci, and Julius Evola, it analyzes how the ethical code of bushido, popularized in Europe through Inazō Nitobe’s Bushido: The Soul of Japan, was interpreted by Italian writers through the lens of Classical Roman ideals of honorable death, civic duty, and heroic virtue. The article emphasizes an Italian tendency to read Japanese martial traditions not as radically other, but as culturally and ethically resonant with national ideals, and identifies two competing yet interconnected interpretations of the samurai that circulated in Italy during the Fascist era: a Shinto-inflected view aligned with sacrificial patriotism, and a Zen-oriented reading centered on spiritual detachment and aristocratic self-overcoming. The article also traces the afterlife of bushido in postwar Italy, showing how Evola’s Zen-oriented version resurfaced in neofascist subcultures during the 1970s. By presenting two alternative interpretations of the samurai, Shinto and Zen, it shows that the transnational samurai became a flexible symbol in twentieth century Italy’s political imagination.
Journal Article
What Time are the Samurai? Visions of Modernity in Twentieth-Century Britain
This article examines perceptions of the samurai and bushido in twentieth-century Britain. It does so by focusing on four key moments: Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1905); the seppuku of General Nogi Maresuke (1912); Japan’s escalating militarism in the 1930s and 1940s; and the seppuku of novelist Mishima Yukio (1970). I explore the discursive variations across these four moments to demonstrate that British attitudes toward the samurai cannot be understood without situating them in the shifting geopolitical and ideological context of the global twentieth century. More specifically, the article highlights the centrality of questions of temporality. I show how British politicians and intellectuals at the beginning of the century associated the samurai and bushido not with medieval Japan, but with a utopian, progressive vision of the future (that is, an “alternative modernity”). Japan’s escalating militarism subsequently generated other interpretations, including the idea of bushido as a cause of Japanese atavism. But across these shifting British debates, one consistent objective in reflecting on Japanese warrior culture was to articulate explanations and predictions for the behavior of modern Japan as an international actor. Such discussions consequently also became opportunities for British elites to affirm or denounce particular visions of the sociopolitical order. Britain’s preoccupation with the samurai, then, amounted to much more than a timeless exoticist fascination with an Oriental culture. To debate the figure of the samurai was to evaluate the promise and limits of alternative modernities beyond the liberal Western model represented by Britain.
Journal Article
The art of life and death : lessons in budo from a ninja master
\"Budo is art and is connected to all other arts. Even in the midst of battle, art can be found--at least, for those who survive.\" \"There are no secrets in budo; there are only lessons that we refuse to learn.\" Daniel Fletcher and Sleiman Azizi studied ninjutsu under the tutelage of the venerable Masaaki Hatsumi of the Bujinkan Dojo and in their new book they pay homage to their Sensei by revealing a host of insightful discoveries. As is the tradition in Eastern disciplines, these lessons are conveyed in stories, poetry, art, and proverbs. Their words of wisdom about the nature of life and death will provoke thought and perhaps break through certain obstacles in your own life that prevent you from achieving transformation. There is a Japanese proverb that admonishes a student not to step on the shadow of his teacher. In writing this book, Azizi and Fletcher discovered that no matter how hard they tried to avoid stepping on it, their teacher's shadow was always there--a reminder of his influence on their lives while at the Bujinkan Dojo. And so, while this book relates their own personal discoveries, they hope that, more than anything, it will be seen as a testament to the vitality of the grandmaster and his budo teachings. \"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Steadfast Resolve
During the late nineteenth century, Christian missionaries and scholars in Europe and the United States expounded upon the inferior character of Japan and other nations in part to justify the dominant position of the West in the imperialist world order. In 1895, when prominent Yale professor George Trumbull Ladd described the Japanese people as fickle and immature, philosopher Ōnishi Hajime responded by holding up bushido and its practice of suicide as analogous to the Stoicism of ancient Greece. In doing so, he suggested the existence of a Japanese ethic of perseverance comparable to one of the philosophical foundations of Western civilization and established a set of talking points that would be picked up by later writers. In the early 1900s, Inoue Tetsujirō expanded upon Ōnishi’s argument, contrasting bushido with Stoicism to suggest the superiority of the Japanese national spirit over the West. As the comparison between bushido and Stoicism became a topic of study for aspiring teachers of the national moral (shūshin) curriculum, members of the Teiyū Ethical Society built upon this comparison to debate the status of bushido and promote competing priorities for moral education. Through such comparisons and contrasts, qualities associated with Stoicism—including self-discipline, perseverance, and the practice of suicide—became integral to conceptions of bushido and Japanese national character in the twentieth century.
Journal Article
