Samurai

[Clint Strickland]

I would like everyone to remember the loyalty and honor the Samurai had.

 

[Cyber Ninja]

Indeed...

 

[terryl965]

:asian:

 

[arnisador]

.

 

[OnlyAnEgg]

.

 

[Bammx2]

.:asian:

 

[Fallen Ninja]

:asian:


:samurai:
:ninja:

 

[jfarnsworth]

.

 

[Jade Tigress]

:asian:

 

[evenflow1121]

:asian:

 

[Slihn]

Let Bushido live on through his forever.:asian:

 

[stickarts]

.:asian:

 

[Rick Wade]

.

 

[aplonis]

The Samurai were all about maintenance of their own, private, socio-political status quo. That, at any rate, was their sole motive in the middle to latter days of their rule...that period after which they became a caste system. It was not any kind of meritocracy during most of its "glory" days.

In a much earlier period it was possible to join the Samurai ranks through merit. But through most of it you were or were not a Samurai based only upon the accident of birth. You could fall out of the ranks, sure. But you could not join them.

The Samurai were fully as machiavellian as any other system of government. They were just more assiduous at putting a good "face" upon their machinations. That very pretense of duty and honor had the most base sort of greed at its hart...an unyielding persuit of power and influence of whatever daimyo you happend to "serve".

They latched on to Zen mysticism and perverted it utterly and without shame into a military doctrine which reached its utmost antithesis to Buddha's teaching so as to be a basis for inspiring Imperial Japanese officers in carrying out the Rape of Nanking during WW2.

There are to this very day some ultra-nationalists in Japan who "uphold" Samurai "ethics" as the basis of what is nothing different whatsoever than racist jingoism. They yet defend (or deny) the Rape of Nanking. Fortunately, they are few. And no modern Japanese desires the return of Samurai rule. Democracy and liberty would come to an end, a bloody end. And a true Samurai would find some means to justify his actions in so doing.

An example:

Take the doctrine of Emptiness from Buddhist philosophy. This is simple yet profound. And easy to understand if you bother to read ALL of Nagarjuna's writings and those of his correspondents. It states that there is no basis to own-being, no ultimate identity to anyting simply because everything is founded upon other circumstances and conditions. Nothing exists solely and completely from its own side. There are many a pithy and concise Zen sayings to drive this doctrine home and deliberately shake one's own false sense of concreteness. A samurai would take these Zen sayings and use them to convince himself that his enemy has no real existence and ratiocinate that it is okay to kill him...since he does not exist. But that is nihlism...which Buddha also spoke against as an extreme and no part whatsoever of the Middle Way.

Yet no Samurai would carry his own mis-logic to its logical extreme and say that his daimyo did not truly exist...that the emperor did not truly exist. No. They were all about power, influence and wealth...as any feudal government is. And military aristocracies are the worst of the lot....which category the Samurai cannot be counted as anything other than.

It does not suffice to merely hold up the word "Samurai" and honor that as if it were utterly stainless, noble and pure. There were good qualities, obviously. But there were as many bad. If you were unlucky enough to have been born a merchant and failed to abase yourself to a Samurai's complete satisfaction, he could take your head off on any public street and no one would dare to say he was wrong to do so. Where is the virtue in that? None. Not any at all. Zero. Unless that is the sort of priviledge you yourself should like to have been, quite accidentally, born into.

Gan Uesli Starling

 

[MA-Caver]

The Samurai were all about maintenance of their own, private, socio-political status quo. That, at any rate, was their sole motive in the middle to latter days of their rule...that period after which they became a caste system. It was not any kind of meritocracy during most of its "glory" days.

In a much earlier period it was possible to join the Samurai ranks through merit. But through most of it you were or were not a Samurai based only upon the accident of birth. You could fall out of the ranks, sure. But you could not join them.

The Samurai were fully as machiavellian as any other system of government. They were just more assiduous at putting a good "face" upon their machinations. That very pretense of duty and honor had the most base sort of greed at its hart...an unyielding persuit of power and influence of whatever daimyo you happend to "serve".

They latched on to Zen mysticism and perverted it utterly and without shame into a military doctrine which reached its utmost antithesis to Buddha's teaching so as to be a basis for inspiring Imperial Japanese officers in carrying out the Rape of Nanking during WW2.

There are to this very day some ultra-nationalists in Japan who "uphold" Samurai "ethics" as the basis of what is nothing different whatsoever than racist jingoism. They yet defend (or deny) the Rape of Nanking. Fortunately, they are few. And no modern Japanese desires the return of Samurai rule. Democracy and liberty would come to an end, a bloody end. And a true Samurai would find some means to justify his actions in so doing.

An example:

Take the doctrine of Emptiness from Buddhist philosophy. This is simple yet profound. And easy to understand if you bother to read ALL of Nagarjuna's writings and those of his correspondents. It states that there is no basis to own-being, no ultimate identity to anyting simply because everything is founded upon other circumstances and conditions. Nothing exists solely and completely from its own side. There are many a pithy and concise Zen sayings to drive this doctrine home and deliberately shake one's own false sense of concreteness. A samurai would take these Zen sayings and use them to convince himself that his enemy has no real existence and ratiocinate that it is okay to kill him...since he does not exist. But that is nihlism...which Buddha also spoke against as an extreme and no part whatsoever of the Middle Way.

Yet no Samurai would carry his own mis-logic to its logical extreme and say that his daimyo did not truly exist...that the emperor did not truly exist. No. They were all about power, influence and wealth...as any feudal government is. And military aristocracies are the worst of the lot....which category the Samurai cannot be counted as anything other than.

It does not suffice to merely hold up the word "Samurai" and honor that as if it were utterly stainless, noble and pure. There were good qualities, obviously. But there were as many bad. If you were unlucky enough to have been born a merchant and failed to abase yourself to a Samurai's complete satisfaction, he could take your head off on any public street and no one would dare to say he was wrong to do so. Where is the virtue in that? None. Not any at all. Zero. Unless that is the sort of priviledge you yourself should like to have been, quite accidentally, born into.

Gan Uesli Starling

To say that the word/meaning/symbolism of Samurai is bad is wrong IMO. To say that most bad japanese became Samurai is ok but to say that most Samurai were bad is not. Sure there were some who were abusive in their authority over phesants who like midevial England/Europe they were subjects to the Lords that owned the land(s) they lived on. The knights were there to preserve order. Samurai do have recorded incidents where they protected lower caste citizens/villagers from Bandits and other criminals.
Culturally who are we to say that they were wrong? If theirs and ours were based on the same ideals then yeah we can presume to judge them. But since their cultural beliefs were radically different than post dark-aged Europe we cannot deem their society and empirical functions as wrong or even barbaric. It's how they lived (and died) and it was a way of life for them during that period of history.
Japanese soldiers in the 40's who tried to carry out Samurai ideals and ethics were wrong since they were born into a totally different world. The atrocities in central China during WWII were products of greed and misguided idealism.

 

[RoninPimp]

I would like everyone to remember the loyalty and honor the Samurai had.

-Exactly how much of that did they have?