No, really. Bushido is not a science and it's not easy to understand. It is made up of many parts, each designed to carefully balance each other. Justice, Courage and Loyalty are just some of the ingredients needed to be added in just the right amounts. Too much can be as bad as too little. A man worried just about Justice might forget about Benevolence and a man worried about Honor might forget about Politeness.
Bushido is not like a coat, that you can put on and take off, but a way of life. A Master Chef does not just practice his art on the weekend - and neither does a Samurai.

The Bushido - the Warrior's Way - is one of the wonderful, unique features of Japanese culture, still important in the modern world. It has inspired many books, spanning several centuries. This book, written around 1905, is distinctive for being addressed to a Western audience.

It was written by a Japanese scholar in Europe, educated (possibly over-educated) in Western ways. As a reader of my own era, I would say that bushido can only be understood in the terms that it sets out. The reader must knock down the Western tradition, from medieval mythos forward, and accept wholly Asian premises for the bushido to make sense. This author, instead, tries to describe the bushido in Western terms. The result is paltry and grotesque.

Nitobe is a product of the bushido, and I am not. He is also a product of the late 19th century, writing in the first few years of the 20th, and writing with English learned at the end of the Victorian era. He explains the bushido in terms of the Old Testament, Shakespeare, Aristotle, and Cervantes. He speaks eloquently to his audience, men who are rigidly Christian and just plain rigid.

I find an unhappy desperation in this book, where the author tries to justify a profoundly Japanese culture in un-Japanese terms. This was the era just after Legge, Hearn, Burton, and FitzGerald. There was an influx of Eastern culture, but it was filtered so that proper English could disuss in their own terms. I am afraid that the filter stopped out all that was truly Japanese.

The serious sudent should read this book, but not to understand Japanese culture. Instead, the reader should try to understand the Western culture that this book addresses. Even now, we are afflicted by Victorian translations of Eastern classics. This book, working from East to West instead, shows just how dire that affliction had become.

//wiredweird