Texto: seria o Bushido importante na cultura japonesa?

 Texto autoral, originalmente publicado na plataforma Quora (em inglês). Como não é uma publicação acadêmica, linguagem coloquial foi utilizada, porém fundamentada em fatos históricos.

link para acesso à publicação original aqui.

texto:

Today’s Bushido is mostly a fabricated ideology, artificially made to provoke some behaviorial changes in Japan’s populace. Or, alternatively, not provoking behaviorial changes when it would be expected to.

And by “today” I mean since the Meiji restoration, in 1868, which ushered Japan in the modern era.

Prior to that Bushido was akin to a warrior code of ethos of the samurai class. Important part here to keep in mind: of the samurai class. Not a national institute, not the spirit of the japanese people. Only of a specific caste. To consider that this Bushido were to be available to peasants and merchants was heretical thought. Another important aspect is that most of this Bushido was developed after the end of the true samurai that were envolved in a daily struggle to life. Japan was unified in 1603, and enjoyed a very peaceful existence and stable government untill the aforemetioned Meiji restoration. So you have the warrior class that were not truly involved in warfare. So they had the luxury of developing complex writings and treatises. A good parallel can be made with the idleness that resulted in huge advancements in the west, in the Greek golden era.

• Pictured: a warrior without a war. A guy so idle that dueling consenting oponents just for the sake of it was a lifestyle. If he wanted to.

Fast forward to after the Meiji restoration concluded: the samurai class was abolished, a caste system does not work well with a country that wants to modernize itself. Actually, it was more to westernize than just modernize. The japanese saw the undisputed technological and military superiority of the west, and so the struggle was to emulate them, and tradition be dammned if need be. Even purely aesthetic features, such as the design of the military uniforms, was perfectly mimicking the western style.

After this proccess has been concluded with a total victory on the side of the monarchists (the ones in favor of westernization), Japan began to look outward, and truly emulate the western capitalistic overseas ventures. What we today call imperialism. And at this time the Bushido, which was in reality reserved only to a specific caste, began to be forced upon the populace as a whole, as if that was the spirit and ethos of the whole japanese people. And it worked wonders. Fast forward to the WWII, and you will see common japanese people, not nobles, facing the war imbued in this Bushido code. Think about the kamikaze attacks, the Banzai charges, the suicides for honor. And other lesser spoken aspects of it, such as the taboo involved in being a pacifist (the book Gen, about an atom bomb survivor, shows this splendidly). So, this Bushido was an ideology that was highly interesting to a militaristic nation, it helped controlling the populace and making it more martial.