American Bushido

I am disturbed by Donald Trump's attempt to militarize people's thinking about the Corona virus, claiming that all Americans are now "warriors," and that he is a wartime President.  Sure, a lot of this is just to try to make himself into more of a hero to his ignorant base, but I think it is a dangerous move.  And what it reminds me of is the Japanese notion of Bushido, as warped by its government in World War II.


I am sure that virtually anyone that reads my blog is familiar with the concept of Bushido, which was the code of the Japanese Samurai.  For those who are not, here is an excerpt from Niitobe Inazo's seminal 1899 book on the subject, Bushido.

"Bushidō, then, is the code of moral principles which the samurai were required or instructed to observe ... More frequently it is a code unuttered and unwritten ... It was an organic growth of decades and centuries of military career. In order to become a samurai this code has to be mastered.

The samurai of thirty years ago had behind him a thousand years of training in the law of honor, obedience, duty, and self-sacrifice ... It was not needed to create or establish them. As a child he had but to be instructed, as indeed he was from his earliest years, in the etiquette of self-immolation."

And remember that during all those long centuries, the code of Bushido applied only to Samurai, a caste of warriors that were born into that role, were trained in it from early childhood, and had no responsibilities to society other than fulfilling that role, but in return were expected to be willing to sacrifice themselves for the people if necessary.


This changed in the runup to World War II.  At that time, the Japanese government began systematically propagandizing their people into thinking that every Japanese citizen was required to follow the code of Bushido, with its demand that all people must be subservient to the military goals of the state.  War was presented as glorious, and death as a duty, not just for the Samurai class (which in any event hardly existed by that time, in any meaningful way,) but for everybody. 


The result of the success of this brainwashing was the slaughter of millions of Japanese people, for years after the time, marked, I think I may say, by their loss at the Battle of Midway, a mere six months after Pearl Harbor, when it was clear that Japan could not win the war.


This is the price of encouraging mindless militarism in large segments of the population.  It is a price that Donald Trump is willing to pay, if it keeps him in the White House and out of prison.  It is, however, hardly an appealing price for the rest of us.