In Search of The Western Bushido
Bushido: The Soul of Japan
Inazo Nitobe, 1899.
Warrior Race: A History of the British at War
Lawrence James
Little, Brown & Co., 2001.
The recent release of The Northman, along with my reading of two fascinating books, Bushido: The Soul of Japan and Warrior Race: A History of the British At War, has prompted me to share some thoughts on the nature and trajectory of Western warrior culture and its place in the West today. The Japanese concept and path of Bushido (“the way of the warrior”) is a useful tool for examining Western warrior culture because it is perhaps the only such system outside the West that offers some striking similarities. And yet there are also enough differences between Bushido and the history of the Western warrior to bring into sharp relief those qualities that make the European experience unique. In the following essay I want to offer something between a book review and a contemporary social commentary. It should be obvious that at the heart of the problem of the West is a failure to participate in the basics of life: to reproduce, and to compete with other groups. Competition in modernity has been reduced to a mostly economic exercise, accompanied by sports only insofar as those sports serve the goal of hypnotic mass entertainment and provide an impotent outlet for the universal instinct towards tribalism and conflict. The classic motifs of the way of the warrior (disdain for death, quest for individual glory, and the building of a morality around concepts of honor rather than simple “fairness” or “equality”) have today either been sublimated to the point of becoming almost invisible, or have vanished entirely. Whence the Western bushido?
Honor and Death
Perhaps the best content found in Lawrence James’s Warrior Race concerns the culture of the ancient Celtic Britons, and that of the Roman and Germanic invaders they came into conflict with. Common among all three, though more pronounced among the Celts and Germans, was the individual quest for honor and prestige. James writes that “personal honour, pride in his unit and reverence for his commanders and the state they served motivated the Roman soldier.”[1] Among the Celts meanwhile, were “professional warriors attached to tribal rulers. Their fighting methods were Homeric, with each man deliberately seeking to prove his audacity and prowess in the manner of a champion.”[2]
Warrior bands were united by shared pride in courage, and by loyalty to a noble lord. James comments that
If [a warrior band] leader was slain, his followers would fight on to the death. For the Romans, such behavior was another example of barbarian madness, but within the Germanic and Celtic traditions it was a mark of the highest distinction. And it long remained so. A fifth-century Roman was puzzled by the fact that among the Alani ‘a man is judged happy who sacrificed his life in battle.’ Six hundred years later, the gravestone of a Scandinavian warrior proclaimed: ‘He did not return at Uppsala, but fought while he could hold weapons.’[3]
The uniqueness of the Western warrior’s contempt for death is thrown into even sharper relief when considered alongside Japanese accounts. In Nitobe’s Bushido, it is remarked that the samurai warriors of feudal Japan possessed a “stoic composure in sight of danger or calamity, that disdain of life and friendliness with death.” This disdain of life, however, did not manifest in the ‘Homeric’ quality in battle alluded to by James. Nitobe adds that the Japanese warrior was not seen to “run all kinds of hazards, to jeopardize one’s self, to rush into the jaws of death.” The modern manifestation of the kamikaze is probably the closest Japanese behavior to the European example, but even here it is too goal-orientated, and rooted too heavily in shame-avoidance (suicide attacks being more effective in attacking warships than conventional attacks), to compare with the assertive seeking of death and honor found among the Europeans.
There is a calculated aspect to the Japanese warrior that is much less evident among the classic European ‘berserker’ type. James points out that “Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, Pictish, and Irish warriors held similar values, followed similar codes of conduct, admired the same qualities, and shared a common pride in their calling.” Personal honor and reputation were primary, since “it gave the warrior status in his lifetime and renown after death, for his exploits would be relived by the versifiers and minstrels who entertained fighting men as they ate and drank in their lord’s hall.” Disdain for death was assisted among all the Northwest European tribes by the common practice of entering an animalistic and predatory state. The Irish called this process riastarthe, which may be rendered as ‘battle fury,’ and in the annals concerning the Irish hero Cuchulain some literary license was employed in explaining how its onset was accompanied by a terrifying physical transformation:
You would have thought that every hair was driven into his head. You would have thought that a spark of fire was on every hair. He closed one eye until it was no wider than the eye of a needle; he opened the other until it was as big as a wooden bowl. He bared his teeth from jaw to ear, and he opened his mouth until the gullet was visible.
Germanic fighting men, who raised themselves to a similar battle fury, became ‘berserk’ (bear-like) or ‘as mad as dogs or wolves; they bit their shields and were as strong as bears.” James suggests that
vulpine characteristics were particularly cherished, for wolves hunted in packs and their savagery was proverbial. Warriors clad in wolves’ skins absorbed that beast’s ferocity. They are described in the ninth-century Norse poem Raven Song: ‘Wolfcoats they are called, those who bear blood-stained swords to battle; they redden spears when they come to the slaughter, acting together.’
One of the remarkable features of the history of British warfare is the long persistence of such traits in the population. James argues that the knights of the middle ages were, after all, “direct descendants of Germanic and Celtic super-warriors.” An excellent case in point is the English lord Sir Giles D’Argentine, who distinguished himself against Scottish forces at the Battle of Bannockburn (1314):
At Bannockburn, when the tide turned against the English, Sir Giles scorned to join the general retreat. Instead, he spurred his horse straight into the ranks of the Scottish spearmen shouting his war cry ‘Argente!’ and was killed. Those of his enemies qualified to judge on arcane chivalric matters rated him ‘the third best knight of that day.’
Even into the nineteenth century, it was believed that the aristocracy could not rely on lineage alone to prove their elite status, but rather should demonstrate it by deeds, especially those involving military courage. In 1855, during the Crimean War, Viscount Palmerston addressed Parliament after news emerged of a heroic charge:
Talk to me of the aristocracy of England! Why, look at that glorious charge of cavalry at Balaklava — look to that charge, where the noblest and wealthiest of the land rode foremost, followed by heroic men from the lowest classes of the community, each rivalling the other in bravery.
A French officer observing another British attack on Russian lines was “astonished by the cold, drill-book manner in which the British moved forward.”[4]
Perhaps the most remarkable example of the persistence of the link between death and honor, found in Warrior Race, concerns an 1803 dispute between Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Montgomery, Household Cavalry, and Captain James Macnamara, Royal Navy. Both were walking their dogs in London’s Hyde Park when the dogs began fighting. Montgomery’s dog was badly wounded, and Montgomery demanded that Macnamara call off his dog or “I’ll knock it down.” Macnamara retorted that such language and conduct was not befitting a gentleman. This was a serious charge, and resulted in the declaration of a duel. The following morning the men met at a secluded part of Chalk Farm were they fired upon one another with pistols. Montgomery was fatally wounded. Three weeks later Macnamara appeared in court charged with manslaughter but defended his actions on the grounds that his role as leader in the Navy demanded that he maintain integrity of dignity and character, and defend his personal honor. He told the court, “It is impossible to define in terms, the proper feelings of a Gentleman; but their existence has supported this happy country for many ages, and she might perish if they were lost.” Macnamara was acquitted and eleven years later he was promoted to rear-admiral. James comments:
By deliberately facing death in a nonchalant manner, the duellist proved his capacity to suppress that most deeply implanted of all human impulses: the urge for self-preservation. If he surrendered to his animal reflexes or his reason, he would simply run away and reveal himself a coward. Cravenness was inexcusable in a gentleman and automatically disbarred him from the company of his equals.
The Fluid Hierarchy
Western social structures and class barriers were more fluid than those among other peoples, and is another difference between the Western warrior culture and the Japanese bushido who followed a rigid hereditary samurai class. Western warrior culture very often rewarded individual heroism with social promotion and the granting of lands, and the long tradition of piracy and battle-looting, which stretched back to the times of the Saxons and Vikings, persisted well into the nineteenth century. James describes how
Some years ago, a member of a Scottish landowning family told me how her ancestor, one of several sons of a crofter, had been taken by his father to enlist in a Highland regiment at Inverness. There was no alternative, for the family land could only support his eldest brother. The young man in question was literate and was promoted quickly, for the could attend to the orderly book, and the high wastage of officers in the Crimea secured him a commission. He served in the army that relieved Lucknow in 1857 and ruthless looting gained him sufficient cash to return home and purchase an estate.
James refers to the long history of such social fluidity, pointing out that
Early modern British society was hierarchical but fluid. A man acquired the public status of gentleman when he secured the symbol of knighthood, a coat of arms. In Elizabethan England and afterwards, they were freely available to anyone who would pay the herald’s fees and convince them that they lived either by their intelligence, if they were lawyers, or had acquired land, if they were merchants or, for that matter, a playwright property-owner like Shakespeare.
Religion
For the samurai, bushido was informed by both Zen Buddhism and Shinto. Nitobe comments that the former inculcated a “calm trust in Fate, a quiet submission to the inevitable,” while Shinto encouraged loyalty to the sovereign and for ancestral memory. Pre-Christian religious influences on Western warrior culture are evident in the transformative, animalistic battle rituals of the ancient Celts and Germanics. It is worth pointing out that Christianity did very little to dull the edge of Western warrior culture, and in fact complimented it very well. As indicated in the early ninth century Saxon poem Heliand, Jesus Christ was embraced as an ideal warrior king who had arrived on Earth as the Ruler’s son, gathered about him a loyal band of men, and, as the “Might-Wielding Christ” had embraced a heroic end in battle against Satan and Death and will one day return upon a white horse to “judge and make war.” Lawrence James stresses that
Superficially at least, the Christian faith condemned all violence, but there were significant exceptions which together added up to the canonical concept of the just war. St Augustine of Hippo argued that force could be used in defence of the weak, to chastise rebels and oath breakers and, of course, against heretics and pagans. … There was little here that would have disturbed the conscience of an early medieval king who, ostensibly, only went to war to protect his otherwise defenceless subjects from aggression or to suppress rebellions. Furthermore, the church respected the calling of the warrior, the more so if he used his arms in pursuit of aims of which it approved.
The Present Day
What remnants of Western warrior culture exist today? Not many. Ted Kaczynski’s concept of “surrogate activities” is appropriate for a wide range of phenomena in the modern West, and involves an activity that is directed toward an artificial goal that people set up for themselves merely in order to have some goal to work toward, merely for the sake of the “fulfillment” that they get from pursuing the goal. Kevin MacDonald has written, referring also to Ricardo Duchesne’s The Uniqueness of Western Civilization, that extreme sports are “a context of implicit Whiteness.” MacDonald writes
In this analysis, White men jumping off buildings and sky surfing are reenacting a fundamental script of Western culture—the same script that underlies Western energy, inventiveness, exploration and creativity. While I argue that this berserker military ethos of daring and adventure is not the whole story of Western individualism (there are also the morally constructed egalitarian ingroups that feed into today’s stifling political correctness; see here, p. 23ff), I think Duchesne has a key insight that explains the psychology of a great many White men and is likely a critically important aspect of the evolutionary psychology of the West.
Such activities are impressive, and are certainly a way to “make ones name” in modernity. But they are also fundamentally without meaning or lasting legacy. For this reason, MacDonald expressed the hope that “such men develop an explicit sense of their White identity and interests and that they redirect their sense of physical daring and adventure to lead their people in the struggles that lie ahead.”
Another layer to “surrogate activities” is that key instincts are “outsourced” into entertainment forms and petty clannishness. This is especially obvious in the sporting world, where the instinct towards tribalism and conflict is directed into spectacles that are ultimately without meaning. Watch a European soccer game and you will very like hear rhythmic mass chants and clapping that are reminiscent of what once could have boomed over an ancient battlefield. In Europe, until recent times, soccer matches would be accompanied, both before and after the game, by mindless and meaningless running street battles between one faction of fans and another. One of the fastest rising sports in the last 15 years is mixed martial arts (MMA), in which men fight in a cage under a relatively loose set of rules (in the original Ultimate Fighting Championship there were hardly any rules at all). One positive effect of this has been a boom in martial arts training among White males, and Whites remain dominant as trainers and instructors.
Coupled with superhero movies and action films of all kinds, however, violence is now primarily something that entertains, rather than something that informs ones view of life and death. Lawrence James closes his history by discussing modern British office workers fighting with paint guns in forests as corporate “team-building exercises,” and the trend for those seeking some kind of personal fulfilment to undergo training programs devised by the Special Air Service. The warrior-aristocratic ethos of violence and conflict that lay at the heart of chivalry and blended with Christian ideals of social responsibility and Renaissance notions of virtue has largely disappeared from the culture of the West. It has been replaced with commercialism, crudity, vulgarity, and overwhelming cowardice.
The social structure of the West remains fluid, but the warrior and gentleman is no longer present in the hierarchy. He has been ousted by the oligarch, the technocrat, the merchant, and the career politician. The military elite is now nothing more than a tool of these forces, rather than a directing force in its own right. Long gone are the days when European heads of state led their troops into battle, earning their right to lead through courage and daring. Although aristocratic dominance of the armed forces in Britain persisted until well into the 19th century, the total wars of the twentieth century “democratized” and watered down the nature of warfare, reducing war to a calculation of numbers and technology in a manner that continues to this day. Where is the warrior in the age of the drone and the intercontinental ballistic missile?
Religion has also collapsed as a support of the European warrior ethos. Long-gone in the West is any hint of the “Might-Wielding Christ.” Today Christianity has been largely reduced to a foot-kissing immigration-assistance network. Look at any mainstream church and you’ll hear plenty about being meek and humble, and nothing about treading down one’s enemies like a winepress (Rev. 19:15). The result is that Christianity will undergo a shift in which less liberal, and more masculine, males gravitate towards very small enclaves of ultra-traditional Catholicism or Orthodoxy where asceticism and older visions of Christ prevail, while mainstream churches become more and more female-dominated.
Writing at the end of the nineteenth century, Inazo Nitobe lamented the gradual decline of bushido in Japan, but remained hopeful that remnants of it would somehow persist:
Bushido as an independent code of ethics may vanish, but its power will not perish from the earth; its schools of martial prowess or civic honor may be demolished, but its light and its glory will long survive the ruins.
I wonder, if Nitobe observed Japan today, whether he would agree that bushido has survived the ruins. For my part, I find myself surveying the ruins of Western culture, and finding only debris.
[1] James, Warrior Race, 8.
[2] James, Warrior Race, 11.
[3] Ibid, 31.
[4] James, Warrior Race, 322.
Just look at the advance of LGBTQ in the West (and even the East).
We are in danger.
Though it is a novel, “Shogun”, by Richard Clavell is a historically accurate treatment and portrait of the pre-Emperor Japan. Clavell was a POW in a Japanese Camp in WWII.
Bushido is more prevalent today in the austerity that the Japanese practice everyday. They are an inwardly strong people, “keep up the side”, maintain position against contravening forces.
After one of the earthquakes, fires, and other national disasters in Japan, you will see people whose whole house, belongings and neighborhood has been demolished, with a calm and collected comportment, whereas in America, cameras show people wailing, throwing themselves on the ground, waving their arms, shrieking, etc, etc, etc.
This is the Bushido ethos and spirit. It is more prevalent in the Asian than the Occidental, who has become retrogressive, feminized, and easily intimidated. Then there is “Face”
The Concept of Wa
http://archive.pov.org/kokoyakyu/the-concept-of-war/
Finally, Asians are influenced by Buddhism, Shintoism, Zen, and Confucianism. Buddhism is about the Inner World of Consciousness. From that proceeds the outer events and actions. The Inner World does fluctuate and gyrate as the Outside World does.
Christianity is an Outer World religion, all geometric, with props like a theater, anthropomorphic at an elementary school picture book level. One does not expect the equal of the former from such a gathering of beliefs. Think of a child in a crib with his toys, and his Rubber Ducky disappears.
Child in a crib with his toys? Rubbery ducky?
I’d like to know what was said to trigger this hmmm poupn?? https://twitter.com/RedRadioVe/status/1533137140900577280
Life. Observation.
Well you’ve never loved in a society run by traditional Christianity so you wouldn’t know.
@ Poupon Marx
“…a calm and collected comportment, whereas in America, cameras show people wailing, throwing themselves on the ground, waving their arms, shrieking, etc, etc, etc.”
I suspect that very palpable contemporary reality is due to the Latin infusion, already apparent (though more muted) in the American services in WW II as commented upon by many Australian servicemen. Its accompaniment was “typical Yank name”…
It isn’t a Germanic or British attribute at all. Just look at the behaviour of the Germans at the end of the war when all knew that all was lost.
Maybe protestantism.. but Catholocism is much much deeper. You just haven’t looked into it.
Why this Asian worship? They are for the most part a psychopathic and barbaric race as evidenced by their abuse
of animals. I lived for several years throughout Asia and aside from the Japanese who deserve our respect, I lost any I had for them majority of Asians, the Chinese in particular.
The reason why men are supposed to protect their tribe/people/race is explained here.
https://humanitylifeandscience.blogspot.com/2022/05/What%20is%20True%20Love%20.html
The reason why men would protect their tribe or race specifically & morally is explained here.
https://humanitylifeandscience.blogspot.com/2022/05/What%20is%20the%20Human%20Race.html
https://humanitylifeandscience.blogspot.com/2022/04/What%20is%20the%20Basis%20of%20Morality.html
The reasons why certain elements & people arent allowed within a human tribe or group is explained here.
https://humanitylifeandscience.blogspot.com/2022/05/Why%20are%20People%20Pro-Choice%20or%20Pro-Life.html
https://humanitylifeandscience.blogspot.com/2022/05/why-multiculturalism-always-fails.html
https://humanitylifeandscience.blogspot.com/2022/05/why-is-lgbtq-hated.html
I hope this helps.
I am glad to the see the Dr. MacDonald return his attention to the Orient again, as had happened in previous editions. The average Westerner is like an engine or piece of machinery left out in the dampness, idle and used for a long time. This is the metaphor for his brain and Spirit. The unit will be hard to start, may need cleaning out, partial tear down and rebuild, and sputter along, gasping and choking intermittently.
Cross cultural comparisons are not just useful, they are essential. Detail and exhortations of the superiority or Western this or that are mere coping and denial mechanisms to avoid facing up to the colossal failure to coalesce and develop generating capacity, reliably, efficiently, and reaching potential speed and power.
Not sure what you mean by “Dr. MacDonald return his attention to the Orient again, as had happened in previous editions.” Dr. Joyce?
Maybe Poupon is pining for articles like this one by Dr. Pattberg to pop up here Dr. Macdonald?
https://thesaker.is/top-guns-kishida-and-us-biden-showdown-with-russia-and-china/
https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2021/08/18/thieves-of-virtue-a-confucian-view-of-white-social-justice-moralism/
https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2018/05/17/what-the-west-can-learn-from-the-buddha-and-gandhi/
https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2019/03/14/the-glories-of-gandhara-lessons-for-identitarians/
Agree
Inaccurate and mostly gibberish. These screeds are far off interpretation mixed with and subjectively interpreted by speculation and the desire to publish or be ignored. The best way to understand is to go to the source, as closely as possible to what Buddha actually said and what can be consensually accepted by scholars and historians. The further away in time, the less reliable. Similar to research on eye witnesses of a crime. The longer the time lapse to recollection, the geometric order of error.
In his central teachings, Buddha lays out the path to a noble life. It is not aesthetic at all. His life is not the advocacy for regular people. That is why he developed the concept of the Third Way, integration of his Teachings and principles in daily life, including families. He had a son with a princess. Buddhist societies do not suffer birthrates below the replacement threshold of birth to death. Enough of this palaver.
There are only a few, historically and contemporary personages that are qualified to expound and adapt certain aspects of Buddhism to the now. This author, choking on his vichyssoise, is NOT one of them.
https://www.diamondway-buddhism.org/diamond-way/
The Europe Center
Diamond Way Buddhists often travel to different countries and centers, to see their teachers and meet with other practitioners. The central international place where this enriching human exchange happens is the Europe Center, which was bought by the Diamond Way Buddhism Foundation in 2007. The Europe Center consists of several buildings and 50 hectares of forest and meadows in the beautiful setting of the Bavarian Alps in Germany.
Buddhist values — an adherence to truth, even the most unpalatable truths about the vanity of existence — in any healthy society must be counter-balanced by vitalist values. Japan, with its fusion of essentially pagan Shinto and various forms of Buddhism, did this best, culminating in Zen and the virtually unrivaled excellence of the samurai ethos.
Buddhism is highly diverse. Even the original sutras show Gautama as something of a naturalistic philosopher or a supernatural being. Buddhism later tended to become either a standard redemption faith (miracles, proliferation of supernatural savior deities, various postmortem rewards — a sure consolation for the peasants) or it turned into an uncompromising life-philosophy for an elite (most remarkably, Zen).
The Gandharan texts reflect most of these tendencies. There are many stories about the supernatural rewards (namely favorable rebirths) for those contributing to the Buddhist sangha (community). Most remarkably, the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra, the foundational Mahayana text, claims that those copying the sutra will get more merit from such action than by saving all the beings in as many worlds as there are “grains of sand in the river Ganges” (356). Now that’s an incentive for memetic reproduction if I ever saw one.
Our 640 Buddhist centers across the Western world present Buddhism in a modern practical context, in over 30 languages. They were founded by Hannah and Lama Ole Nydahl under the spiritual guidance of His Holiness the 16th Karmapa. All our centers are directed by Lama Ole Nydahl under the spiritual patronage of Thaye Dorje, His Holiness the 17th Karmapa..
Being a Buddhist
Buddhists generally describe themselves as happy people. But becoming Buddhist doesn’t magically change the world around us to fit our needs. So what is it that changes?
To be a Buddhist, we don’t need to wear any special clothing, change our eating habits, or give up material possessions or a social life. It’s as simple as changing our perception — not taking the obstacles that come our way so seriously, and seeing everything around us as interesting and full of potential. Simple to say but not always easy to do.
https://www.diamondway-buddhism.org/buddhism/being-a-buddhist/
By understanding the teachings and using tools like meditation, as Buddhists we gradually alter our view of whatever is happening in life. It’s not about putting on rose-tinted glasses but rather removing veils that prevent us from seeing how things really are.
Ignorance is a choice. Stupidity is the serialization of not wanting to know. This author is a European, but obviously knows little of the essence or practical principles of Buddhism. The Center is within driving distance of his location. There are centers in France. He should get off his ass.
Kevin, I recall reading your sound opinion on why the Overseas Chinese are not ” the Jews of Asia “.
One of Malaya’s Colonial officials , Sir Frank Swettenham , referred to the OC as ” the easiest people to govern.”
Not an accolade likely to be enjoyed by our eternal enemies.
Thank you always, AJ.
A vilified (for the time being) early 20th century statesman once said, “The prerequisite to action is the will and courage to be truthful”.
In our time we might add ‘The prerequisite to being truthful is the will and courage to face economic loss’.
Long, continuous periods of peace and prosperity have always brought about the physical, mental, and moral deterioration of the individual. Bradley A. Fiske, The Art of Fighting
Well then, the accomplished man uses the sword but does not kill others.
He uses the sword and gives others life. When it is necessary to kill, he kills.
When it is necessary to give life, he gives life. Takuan Soho, Letters to Yagyu Munenori
Might I introduce you to a great modern day warrior Stefan Verstappen.
https://www.chinastrategies.com/the-dark-knight/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnXbf0szwrw
https://www.chinastrategies.com/the-way-of-the-warrior/
Excellent. I will reflect on content and utility details in future.
Dr Joyce – Recently – and I mean in the last few years – Japan and China have been subject to revisionist re-examination. It has been taken from Internet articles translated by machine.
.
Here’s one example
https://joshf731.substack.com/p/the-jewish-fifth-column-in-japan?s=r
.
The supposed Japanese tradition was erased, starting with Commodore Perry’s coal-fired ships.
The problem is and has been the hipster male, ‘all his life a dog looking for a master.’
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/the-white-negro-fall-1957
@Michael Adkins
“The problem is and has been the hipster male, ‘all his life a dog looking for a master.’”
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/the-white-negro-fall-1957
What a painful mixed bag to smuggle in to illustrate one tiny assertion!
“Probably, we will never be able to determine the psychic havoc of the concentration camps and the atom bomb upon the unconscious mind of almost everyone alive in these years. For the first time in civilized history…”
“The Second World War presented a mirror to the human condition which blinded anyone who looked into it. For if tens of millions were killed in concentration camps…”
“…unknown, unhonored, and unremarked, a death which could not follow with dignity as a possible consequence to serious actions we had chosen, but rather a death by deus ex machina in a gas chamber or a radioactive city…”
Mailer was such a nasty, intense, drama queen!
I hope to be forgiven if I encourage here people to read Dominique Venner’s final work, A Handbook for Dissidents, an important part of which is his analysis of why the Christian clergy was in fact the crucial factor that prevented the European warrior nobility from developing its own Bushido. Far from “complementing [warrior culture] very well”, Christianity, even in its profoundly Europeanized version, remained incompatible with it. The conflict between knights and clerics was the source of ALL medieval conflicts; and the fact that ethical and philosophical discourse was foreclosed to the warrior nobility in the West (despite desperate attempts such as courtly love and chivalric codes) had profoundly important consequences.
” The conflict between knights and clerics was the source of ALL medieval conflicts; “…
Superb observation .
Nitobe Inazo is probably talking about the Edo period. During the Sengoku period, class barriers were more fluid. Most warriors were not full-time warriors, but farmed their own family fields.
Some Japanese consider the Edo period to be a rigid, bad time.
The second and third sons were not heirs and were desperate to risk their lives and play an active role on the battlefield.
In Sengoku period, there were some berserkers. Takahashi Joun, Sanada Yukimura, and Shimazu Yoshihiro are well known. The Japanese tended to overly glorify their brave enemies.
The rules of war existed: if the lord of the castle committed seppuku, the soldiers would be rescued. Shimizu muneharu and Hojo Tokimasa committed seppuku and were admired by many.
On the other hand, Tokugawa Ieyasu was respected for not committing suicide with honor and keeping his life alive.
postscript
Kurosawa Akira was deeply interested in the forgotten customs of the Sengoku period, and talked about them with Miyazaki Hayao in this movie.
He appreciated that the Sengoku period was a fairly fluid contractual society.
He believed that the complex theories of loyalty were rather designed to benefit the Tokugawa regime.
https://youtu.be/99bPvVoRJbY?list=PL69583CF54E327FCC&t=119
Bushido, samurais, martial artists… A farmhand with a two-by-four could make mince meat of all of them.
Most eastern warrior philosphy is a pale derivative of the philosophy of Arjuna in the Mahabharata, which is closely related to the heroic philosophy of the west, i.e. “A Hero with a Thousand Faces”, from Gilgamesh to Herakles (which Jesus is an embarrassing pantomime of).
The only reason there’s a divide between eastern and western philosophy, is because there’s an Abrahamic wasteland inbetween, since the creation of Christianity and Islam. At the root, the Veda books and the western heroic philosophy was created by the same people, our ancestors.
No need to cross several oceans to find water.
I read several reviews, synopses, and comments about the themes and claims of this book. Nowhere does it mention a time continuum of cause-effect, precursor, or derivation. It simply lists them and shows us the similarities similar to Jung’s Archetypes, and the mythical forces that exert upon the individual and collective consciousness. Did you lie about this, or just pluck it out of the litter box?
A farm hand with a 2 X 4 can….. I commit this poop a droop to the general consensus.
Not sure what you mean, did I use the word “derivative” wrong? Not sure what you mean I lie about either.
The myth of the hero (Gilgamesh, Osiris, Odysseus) as a mystical journey, told in esoteric metaphors, is the real European religion. The myths used in their initiations. The religion Christianity destroyed. We still have some of it’s fruits, in science and art.
The story of Arjuna – overcoming fear of death and attaining enlightenment – is similar to the western hero myths. It’s one of the four ways to enlightenment in Hinduism. Arjuna uses the shock of war as a way to enlightenment.
The reason there seems to be so many similarities between Greek philosophy and the Upanishads is because they have the same source, indo european mysticism. Plato &Co was initiated and understood the esoteric layers of the myths.
For example, in the western myths it seems likely to me that the many stories about dragons is a metaphor for what the Upanishads call “kundalini” (coiled snake). It rises out of the waters (pelvis-“basin”), travels up the spine and reaches the crown chakra. This seems to be one of the hidden meanings behind the “dragon-slayers” in western mythology. (It would explain why some of the anatomical terms comes from mythology – “Ilium” (Troy) being a part of pelvis, the start of Odysseus journey.)
Medicine was part of the mystic teaching – as in eastern philosophy – and the anatomical terms is a remnant of this teaching.
Thanks Andrew. Always great stuff from you.
The first thing that I thought about when I began to read this piece, is ‘Free Soloing.’ There is a documentary on this sport of the same name. Its most famous practitioner is Alex Honnold. The sport consists of climbing, usually mountains, though it can be other things such as buildings, or smokestacks etc., thousands of feet high, without anything; no ropes, no harnesses, nothing. So one mistake, or wrong move, and that’s it, you are a gonner. Honnold has said that he gets a Zen like, euphoria from his climbing. I have watched some of the documentary and it is hard to watch, for me anyway, since as the viewer, you’re always wondering if the person free soloing will fall to their deaths as some have. One thing one notices about the climbers is that they’re all fair haired white people, both men and women. When climbing, their faces are stoic and intent in their concentration as they face death every step of the climb.
I feel sometimes that just waking up in the morning and facing another day of watching the destruction of our people and culture, especially here in the U.S., in some ways is courageous. I let my knowledge loose on as many as I can and spread our message wide. We all must have courage to do this even though at times it might seem futile. I have lost many friends, and work because of this. It’s a war that we must show up for. At least the Jews can’t just shoot us dead ‘yet’ like they did in Red Square beginning in 1917, or at the farms of the Kulaks.
I do hope to have my book finished by the end of this year. Will I use a pseudonym…? I don’t know yet.
Why in heaven would you use a cowardly pseudonym? Unless you had a really good reason, that is. Do you? I doubt it very much. How disappointing to hear constant weakness like this here.
Pretty much anyone is in danger these days, especially if present trends continue.
Many current dissident writers use pseudonyms Carolyn, even the most well known; Spencer J. Quinn, Dr. Thomas Dalton, and… I do believe that the author of this piece we are commenting on, Dr. Andrew Joyce, is a pseudonym.
I don’t know about cowardly. It would probably be the smart thing to do.
” I don’t know about cowardly. It would probably be the smart thing to do.”
You are probably correct about that .
I don’t think Carolyn realizes the object of warfare is to get at the enemy and try to avoid making yourself a target .
“The jews can’t shoot us dead?”
Yes, they can and they are…..they use feral blacks as a golem.
And the (((FBI))) preys on depressed young men, incites them to violence, etc.
The jews always use proxies.
01 Today, at the latest, your yet untitled book will be on the ADL’s watchlist for the future.
02 Your handle here will be noted in their margins, but Robert will not even be taken by them as a positive, partial identifier: merely as a possibility.
03 All of your comments here, will be collectively analyzed for your identifiable syntax. [ I once read a book by Thatcher and was hit as by a bat, when a ghostwriter took over. ] One briefest mention of climbing, and they got their man.
04 The few publishers prepared to print such books are on their list, and they have paid informers among their lesser staff, prepared to give them notice as to what is coming down the pipeline.
05 Therefore, why not just follow Carolyn’s suggestion !
” Therefore, why not just follow Carolyn’s suggestion ! ”
Being an enemy in camouflage is high risk but not flagrantly suicidal ; whereas identifying yourself as an enemy target is practically suicidal even if it entails only slightly more than high risk . Furthermore , not everyone ( especially women ) in a war zone , but not on an actual battlefield , needs to wear camouflage . For example , the WN war status of Prof KMac would be analogous to high value military asset generals whom are known to the enemy and thus are supposed to usually stay off an actual battlefield which otherwise normally would greatly reduce their value as an asset to the whole military .
As of the date of his material Comment, Bobbi is no longer
” camouflaged “; irrespective of your military analogy.
A sorely missed, outspoken writer and commenter here, unwisely divulged merely two familial circumstances, which would enable the ADL to identify and locate him in all but an hour.
[ And, please have someone explain to you, the difference between ” who ” and “whom ” ! ]
…” which would enable the ADL to identify and locate him in all but an hour.”
You mean Whites cannot do that to ADL agents ?
Regardless , FYI sometimes the only difference is in the spelling as is the case in my comment above . When was the last time you learned about “whom” ?
I’m not too worried about it. The important thing is to get the book done and to get our message out there and – to tell my story!
Btw, didn’t Carolyn work with TANSTAAFL…? I wonder if she called him a coward?
“Woke” is what the L O U D E S T voice reinforcement Jewish power invert/subvert (abuse of semantics) assigns to the masses that are used to counter the voice of the real “woke” ie, the people who see thru the ridiculous charade of the insanely jealous and hostile people known as “jews”. The free expression of mutual awareness about our situation and our right to live how we wish which looks to be separate from the the jews as the only way, let alone our survival is “Antisemitic” to the inexplicably and perpetually hot-headed, pissed-off jews.
If you get pushed past the point of fear for the loss of realizations to ambitions – let alone mob attacks – or even death… it becomes comical. Seriously! I’m buckled over in a fit of uncontrollable merriment hysterics at these retards who can’t live in the real world with the rest of us as they position themselves into the cozy diaper class at the expense of all other people not of them.
Jews have no real argument against criticism towards them. All they have is power to snuff out the voices that seek justice and natural order in an ever eroding societal as payment for what the jews setup that is now completely moved into kafkaesque proportions (no legal footing available to any non jews that can recourse to any advantage to rectify the situation now. It has to be done some other way) . You think “the nazis” were so bad? …just imagine how bad their victors had to’ve been
There are signs of life, still. The world is not without examples:
https://www.catholicmilitaryassociation.org.uk/about-us
‘Where is the warrior in the age of the drone and the intercontinental ballistic missile?’
In the special forces whose numbers have increased massively in the last two decades naturally.
“(T)hose qualities that make the European experience” are inadequate not because they are lost but because the qualities as addressed in that name by the essayist are inadequate.
daodejing, written 2500 yrs ago, makes this clear.
69:
Who understands war
Does not assert or accept it
Conducts war by retreating without advancing
Attacking without intruding
Defending without exposure
Capturing without confrontation
Is invisible in de by not acknowledging another as enemy
Seeking to defeat another
Wastes treasure
War can only be conducted in grief
Which puts paid to English understandings of heroism and berserkers.
Note that the central syllable of daodejing, de (a. k. a. virtue/power/centre, source or spring of authority), has no equivalent in English and we cannot talk sensibly about it unless we do so in this awareness. Furthermore it is this reality that exposes or explains the absurdity of every Western presumption of hegemony.
Presently, this is the Orca coming home to roost in our West.
For zhong (central people, a. k. a. Chinese) centrality cannot have a fixed abode, ie has no name, for it refers to centrality in all and all necessarily remains intrinsically unstable, (in this universe at least)
Furthermore I am not an expert. My understanding comes out of 15 years of contemplative study and renditioning. My comment is therefore not a correction but a tentative recognition that if anyone from our Western world wants to understand daodjing they need amongst many things to get this matter of de and zhong straight. They are not English concepts and the word Chinese is not a zhong word.
Commodore Perry gave the Japanese a technological nudge .
Modernise your own society or become like Gaijin..
Decision made, right up until the UN / NGO harassed the Tokyo Govt to accept immigrants.