| Revision as of 15:43, 24 February 2005 editMackeriv (talk | contribs)2,670 edits Factual accuracy← Previous edit | Latest revision as of 16:12, 10 July 2024 edit undoQwerfjkl (bot) (talk | contribs)Bots, Mass message senders4,013,033 editsm Removed deprecated parameters in {{Talk header}} that are now handled automatically (Task 30)Tag: paws [2.2] | ||
| (625 intermediate revisions by more than 100 users not shown) | |||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
| {{Talk header|search=yes}} | |||
| ''I corrected the characters for "loyalty", they clearly must be "忠義" and not "尽忠", which cannot be pronounced as "chugi". | |||
| {{WikiProject banner shell|class=C|vital=yes|1= | |||
| {{WikiProject Japan|importance=top|history=y|milhist=y|culture=y}} | |||
| {{WikiProject Military history|class=Start|B-Class-1=no|B-Class-2=yes|B-Class-3=yes|B-Class-4=yes|B-Class-5=yes|Japanese-task-force=yes}} | |||
| {{WikiProject Martial arts}} | |||
| {{WikiProject Religion|importance=Top}} | |||
| }} | |||
| {{User:MiszaBot/config | |||
| | algo = old(730d) | |||
| | archive = Talk:Bushido/Archive %(counter)d | |||
| | counter = 2 | |||
| | maxarchivesize = 150K | |||
| | archiveheader = {{Automatic archive navigator}} | |||
| | minthreadstoarchive = 1 | |||
| | minthreadsleft = 6 }} | |||
| == Chivalry? == | |||
| ''Thanks, bye'''' | |||
| The article now has this anti-historical tidbit: | |||
| == Factual accuracy == | |||
| "Nitobe was not the first person to document Japanese chivalry in this way. In his text Feudal and Modern Japan, historian Arthur May Knapp wrote: | |||
| It looks like some people have different beliefs regarding the bushido, and this is reflecting on the previous edits of this article. Something must be done about this, and until that happens, the <nowiki>{{disputed}}</nowiki> tag should remain there. Me, I don't know enough about the subject, so I can't really stick my finger on this. I hoped I could find something more reliable here. As for my opinion, I've always thought their code of honor was indeed real in that past. Something that was common sense, followed by a large part of the samurai. Now I don't know anymore, though. | |||
| "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. The fine instinct of honor demanding it was in the very blood..." " | |||
| The discussion pertaining this can be carried here.--] 04:26, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC) | |||
| Which is to say, May noted that the warrior class were brought up to be filial and obedient. How does this constitute 'Japanese chivalry,' rather than Confucianism? Especially if the warriors themselves conceived of their loyalty, self-sacrifice etc in Confucian terms? If the the entire language of loyalty is drawn from the Chinese classics? The most this excerpt shows is that other people besides Nitobe were inventing fictitious pasts and "essences of the Japanese spirit." The point remains that "Bushido" (as presented in this article) is a product of late 19th and early 20th century historical imagination. | |||
| Recent edits by anon user 203.62.217.146 sound dismissive and POV: "Bushido was the supposed warrior code of the samurai." "In reality, however, bushido was an invention of frustrated samurai", "Today it is dismissed by serious historians" "Bushido re-emerged during World War 2 as Japanese propaganda" etc... Maybe a line could be written on such alternative views (with "serious historian"'s reference please), but isn't organizing the whole article around this theme quite excessive? ] 10:33, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC) | |||
| This article is even spinning off further innacurate articles. If a text depicts warriors, it is now automatically part of the imaginary corpus of "Bushido literature." Talking about it in the Tokugawa period is highly questionable, and downright ridiculous when it starts being ascribed to the Kojiki. Now we have "Japanese chivalry" existing even before the emergence of a warrior class! | |||
| I agree this page needs to stay disputed for awhile, and that anon should have worded their entry a little more elegantly, though the actual content of the entry is essentially correct. The mistake people make with the whole samurai/bushido thing is that they are mixing up the eras, and reading the wrong books. The Sengoku Jidai period samurai is the samurai that most people are familiar with. Most of the Akira Kurosawa samurai films are taken from this period (mid 15th century up until the beginning of the 17th century), and this is where the image of the warrior samurai that everyone is familiar with comes from. These samurai were as unloyal as you could imagine, retainers often changed masters, and daimyo were continuingly forming and breaking alliances as soon as an advantage was to be had. Then Tokugawa Ieyasu won the battle of Sekigahara and established the Tokugawa Bakufu, ushering in the "Edo period", and with it several centuries of peace. In this period the samurai quite rapidly became aristocrats. They still wore their swords and some of them even practiced the martial arts, but there were no battles to fight and most samurai spent their lives on guard duty, collecting taxes or enjoying poetry and theatre (along with booze and the odd trip to the brothel!). This is where the image of the elegant & learned samurai comes from, though even that has been exaggerated somewhat over the years. | |||
| Now, the topic of bushido. I was going to write up my opinions on the matter, but the article listed on the current Bushido page, http://www.koryubooks.com/library/kfriday2.html, does a pretty good job of it (and it's written by historian Karl Friday, to boot). A quick summary would be - during the Edo period, the period of peace, the Tokugawa Bakufu had to find a way to satisfy and reward their samurai, who no longer had much of a chance of moving through the ranks without the opportunity of proving himself in battle, which had been the main cause of promotion in the Sengoku Jidai period. To do this the Bakufu tried to change the concept of "honour" from a personal one to that of the clan and your master. The intent of this was that even if you were likely stuck at your social level for your whole life, you should still work hard to make your clan and your daimyo look better, which in turn will make you look better. To anyone who has read "Hagakure" this should sound familiar, giving and not getting anything back but the knowledge that you've improved your clan's status. | |||
| As you may imagine, this didn't quite work in practice as samurai are, after all, human beings, and are just as ambitious as everyone else. It also led to some problems, like with Lord Asano and the 47 ronin, who revenged their lord as any good samurai was supposed to, yet were still condemned to death because they acted contrary to the Bakufu's ruling on the matter. But the actions of these 47 men were pretty unique, and could not be considered the standard. | |||
| The real problem is that during the Edo period there was a certain consensus of what defines a samurai, however it differed from clan to clan and was not a written code in any sense of the word, nor was it followed by each and every man who wore the two swords. It's also important not to think of this as "bushido", as this term was simply not used back in those times. | |||
| I think a great book that should help disillusion people about samurai of this period is the dairy of Katsu Kokichi, titled "Musui's Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai". This is a great example of exactly what a good percentage of the samurai had become during the period of peace following Sekigahara. "The Taming of the Samurai" by Eiko Ikegami is also a great look at the changing role of samurai during the Edo Period, from a sociological perspective. It touches on the Hagakure as well. | |||
| Personally, I think the Bushido article hosted here needs a couple of things to be complete - a quick description of the transition of the samurai from warriors to administrators, a description on what it meant to be a samurai in the Edo period, the appearance of Bushido as Japanese propaganda after the Meiji restoration and a final blurb about the modern view of the bushido code, comparing the fiction to fact.--] 04:25, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) | |||
| Nick Kapur's revision was excellent. I don't see any compelling reason why it has not been adopted. Presumably the page should reflect scholarly consensus, and not the mistaken beliefs of martial arts enthusiasts. | |||
| What I find wrong here is the way the anon user filled the article with his "the bushido was nothing but a farse" pseudo-arguments. Things were not so simple. There ''was'' a strong feeling of keeping an honorable status among the samurai of certain eras in the feudal Japan. What you say about the samurai changing their concepts through the ages, Angus, sounds more than plausible, but still, there was no farse. Sure, our minds are filled with fantasy nowadays, and that surely clouds our judgement regarding certain things (specially things like this), but I still think this article is filled with endless bias. I will give an example that might sound good for some, and might sound like BS to others, but there it goes anyway. | |||
| So, why are these changes blocked? <!-- Template:Unsigned IP --><small class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 23:21, 1 May 2010 (UTC)</small> | |||
| I think one of the biggest demonstrations of honor to one's owns beliefs, at that time, was the ]. The reasons varied greatly. Tainted reputation, overwhelming disappointment, protest, etc. Cases of seppuku, however, weren't isolated among the samurai community. They were very common. It was part of their culture, and still is, in certain ways. It comes from the concept that it's better to have an honorable death than live a life in shame. It was a fast way of getting rid of every single dishonor on their lives. It was an act considered to be so full of honor, that after it's done, the person would be forgiven of everything. A decent ending. Now, anyone paid attention to the recent cases of mass suicides in Japan, set up via the Internet? Young people commiting suicide together inside cars? Would that be just a coincidence? I wouldn't say so. There's more there than meets the eye. | |||
| == Grammar == | |||
| I'm not just pulling that off my head, though. I've read a lot about it, so nah, I'm not wrong. You might think this is completely unrelated, but to everybody that read a thing or two about suicide in Japan, you know that these aren't the only cases. Why do certain subway stations in Japan have acrylic barriers in the platforms to prevent people from jumping down the rails? Keep thinking. | |||
| First sentence: "is a Japanese a phrase". Wtf? <!-- Template:Unsigned IP --><small class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 17:02, 31 July 2016 (UTC)</small> | |||
| Alright, this is just an example. Now, to my point. Would a culture that preserved such traditions based purely on honor (which "evolved" through the ages, certainly), so strongly, have nothing to do with that same honor? It's true I'm talking about something more complex than bushido right now, but see if you can trace the connections. As it's said in the ] article, "Seppuku was a key part of bushido". I'm still talking about the same thing, besides the appearances. "Invention of frustrated samurai"? I wouldn't say so. | |||
| --] 01:07, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) | |||
| == "Bushidō" as historical fiction == | |||
| There is criticism of Nitobe's work as a fabrication, cobbled together from disparate half-truths. See also ''Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit'' (https://www.tofugu.com/japan/bushido/, December 8, 2014). How much of our article reflects history, and how much reflects mythology? ‑‑ ] │<sup>'']''</sup> 17:28, 3 June 2020 (UTC) | |||
| Hi, I agree with AngusH. But this article is titled Bushido which is a term that did not even exist before the late Edo period and in fact probably the Meiji era (mid 1800s). Niitobe's book Bushido, written in English, is the most widely read text on this topic and it is largely fictious, although Japanese themselves have adopted much of it. Niitobe turned his back on Japan. The book Shogun is another bad influence. | |||
| Just as well I didn't write this article, it would have been far more pointed. Maybe I can re-write it. | |||
| To add onto this: | |||
| As for Seppuku, it was far more rare than reported. Mostly it was a forced suicide. Originally the individual stabbed himself and the assitant decapitated him after sufficient agony had been endured. By the Edo period people were commiting seppuku with (folded) fans, they reached for the fan as a purely symbolic act and were decapitated by the "assistant". | |||
| Nitobe's work is generally accepted as historical fabrication within Japan. His writings have no basis in reality, with the writer himself believing he had invented the word "武士道" (bushido), due to a complete lack of research done on his part. His writings were criticised heavily by Inoue Tetsujiro, Uemura Masahisa, and Tsuda Sōkichi. All of whom were significantly more prominent historical writers at the time. | |||
| Kaonashi, there are no subway stations in Tokyo with acrylic barriers to prevent suicides. | |||
| He states this in his own writings: | |||
| Yes, there are. This time I'll even show you I read about it. That's a famous Brazilian magazine that talks exclusively about the Japanese culture. What you're referring to is right at the editorial. Too bad you won't be able to see it. And yes, you guessed it. It's Tokyo. Congrats. | |||
| Inazō Nitobe. Bushido: The Soul of Japan "It is not a written code; at best it consists of a few maxims handed down from mouth to mouth or coming from the pen of some well-known warrior or savant." | |||
| As for seppuku, I'm afraid you don't completely understand it. The "assistant" you talk about was usually a close friend of the person in question. He was there to finish his pain as soon as possible, by yes, chopping the head. They had no reasons to make the seppuku committer endure more pain than necessary. Now, about the "forced seppukus" you also referred to, that's not that different either. When captured prisoners were sometimes given the ''choice'' of commiting seppuku or by dying by the sword of someone there. To be given such a choice was a great regally. It was better to commit seppuku and die a honorable death than dying by the hands of the enemy, once again. In that case, the "assistant" would be there to end the person's pain just as fast. No changes on that. Otherwise, why would the enemy suggest the seppuku anyway? It's a chance of being "forgiven" by many. Not a chance of getting through even more pain.--] 15:43, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) | |||
| He provides no evidence or supporting work to support this quote, and doubles down later in life. | |||
| "Some thirty years ago, when I first wrote an essay on the moral code of the Japanese and called it“Bushido”, there was raised a question both in Japan and among some scholars abroad as to the legitimacy of such a term. They had heard of Shido or Budo but never of “Bushido”. Some of them went even further and doubted the existence of such a code. … But the more I think of it, the stronger grows my conviction that we have been under the sway of ideas and opinions unformulated but none the less potent, whose guiding principle was Honor. And as it came to existence during the days of feudalism, it partook the coloring and taste of the period. Since it was made a class morality of the knights, samurai, it laid particular stress on honor; and because it was primarily meant for observance by that class, we may call it Bushido, the Way of the Fighting Knights.”58 | |||
| Ōta,Yūzō, Taiheiyō no hashi toshite no Nitobe Inazō, 20-21 | |||
| Nitobe Inazō. Lectures on Japan, 124-125. | |||
| Oleg Benesch, Bushido : the creation of a martial ethic in late Meiji Japan | |||
| Oleg Benesch, Inventing the Way of the Samurai: Nationalism, Internationalism, and Bushido in Modern Japan, First edition | |||
| These assertiosn fall into direct conflict with the existence of the following works: | |||
| Hishikawa Moronobu " kokon bushido ezukushi" 菱川師宣の「古今'''武士道'''絵つくし」（1684） | |||
| Ogyū Sorai "Sorai Sensei Tōmonsho" 荻生徂徠『徂来先生答問書』(1725) | |||
| 「世上に'''武士道'''と申習し申候一筋、古之書に之れ有り候。君子の道にもかなひ、人を治むる道にも成り申すべきやの由、御尋ね候。」 | |||
| ] (]) 01:32, 16 June 2021 (UTC) | |||
| ==Multiple Types of Bushido== | |||
| The page has improved significantly to explain the multiple Bushido types through history. Such as: Ancient Bushido (Heian-Kamakura, 794-1333), Sengoku Bushido (Sengoku period, 1336-1603), Edo Bushido (Early to late Edo (1603–1868), Meiji Bushido (1868-1945) and Contemporary Bushido (1950–Present): it is still used in various forms such as business, communication, martial arts and a way of life. Each type has distinct features. Bushido was originally focused on valor and later gained morals for attitude and behaviour. "Bushidō (武士道, "the way of the warrior") are regulations for samurai attitudes, behavior and lifestyle." Bushido is best used as an overarching term for all the codes, practices, philosophies and principles of samurai culture. Bushido is by extension the Japanese way of the warrior. Thus Nitobe Inazō's popular book "Bushido: The Soul of Japan (1900)" must not be used as the primary interpretation, because it does not represent all bushido types and interpretations by samurai and important figures. There are earlier works which describe bushido long before Nitobe. The historical development was put in chronological order with additional references. Etymology was expanded with important terminology. Additionally, valuable images were added about Bushido such as: Koyo Gunkan by Kosaka Masanobu (1616), Kashoki (Amusing Notes) by Saito Chikamori (1642) and Book cover of Kokon Bushido Ezukushi (Bushido Through The Ages) by artist Hishikawa Moronobu (1685). Images of the Hagakure and Musashi's Book of Five Rings could be included. - ] (]) 01:08, 26 November 2020 (UTC) | |||
| The "Ancient Bushido" section includes vague information that is uncited and doesn't really make sense: "The old samurai didn't discuss morals of the modern samurai. The exception is feelings of mercy and natural feelings. The focus was overwhelming others by force, governing and protecting the land. The substantive aspect was important. The samurai of this time were terrifying and pure fighters." It is unclear who the "old samurai" or "modern samurai" are, how/why they would be discussing each others' morals in ancient times, what "the exception" is for "mercy and natural feelings" (and what those things even are), what "focus" is being discussed, what "the substantive aspect" means and how it was important, etc. The statement that they were "terrifying and pure fighters" is both extremely vague and a value judgment unsupported by a citation; terrifying according to whom? Pure in what way? This just sounds like someone's opinion that isn't clearly related to any source. ] (]) 17:13, 1 February 2022 (UTC) | |||
| :: I agree with {{user|65.144.88.134}}, the "Ancient bushido" section was poorly presented and not backed up by the references. I have ] and removed that section. ‑‑ ] │<sup>'']''</sup> 22:33, 24 May 2022 (UTC) | |||
| == Styling bushido consistently throughout == | |||
| Looking through this article, I have found bushido spelled with and without the macron over the o, and both italicized and not, and both capitalized and not. | |||
| One of the tenets of good writing is consistent style; that is, except for direct quotations, bushido should be typed the same way every time. I suggest using "bushido" without the macron, in roman (non-italicized) type, and lower-cased. | |||
| In 2010, this article was moved from Bushidō to Bushido by community consensus. That is my justification for removing the macron in all references to the term. I think there is sufficient usage of lower-cased "bushido" in the sources used in this article to justify lower-casing it ourselves. However, whether it should be italicized is a closer call. | |||
| The Misplaced Pages Manual of Style instructs us to italicize romanized words that are not in common use in the English language. However, looking at our sources, it seems italicized as often as not, though whether those sources are authorities on whether a word is in common usage in the English language is a separate argument. I asked a linguist her opinion about the commonality of "bushido" and she said she thinks it is common enough in English to use roman type. I think it is common enough, but I know that society at large is not saying "bushido" every day. So I leave it up to community consensus. | |||
| Should we italicize bushido? I vote no. | |||
| — ]<sub>]</sub> (]) 11:35, 15 March 2021 (UTC) | |||
| : How to style the term depends in part on how it's being used. | |||
| : If it's being used as a Japanese term, then we should keep the macron and italicize. The first sentence in the article lede is one such example, and the caption on the image of the kanji spelling is another. | |||
| : If it's being used as an English term, then we should lose the macron and not italicize, and also not capitalize. The running text in the ] section is one such example. | |||
| : ], ‑‑ ] │<sup>'']''</sup> 00:41, 1 May 2021 (UTC) | |||
| == A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion == | |||
| The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: | |||
| * ]<!-- COMMONSBOT: discussion | 2022-05-30T17:22:06.687902 | USS Bunker Hill hit by two Kamikazes.jpg --> | |||
| Participate in the deletion discussion at the ]. —] (]) 17:22, 30 May 2022 (UTC) | |||
Latest revision as of 16:12, 10 July 2024
| This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Bushido article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
|
| Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1, 2, 3Auto-archiving period: 2 years  |
 | This  level-5 vital article is rated C-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Referencing and citation: criterion not met
Coverage and accuracy: criterion met
Chivalry?
The article now has this anti-historical tidbit:
"Nitobe was not the first person to document Japanese chivalry in this way. In his text Feudal and Modern Japan, historian Arthur May Knapp wrote:
"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. The fine instinct of honor demanding it was in the very blood..." "
Which is to say, May noted that the warrior class were brought up to be filial and obedient. How does this constitute 'Japanese chivalry,' rather than Confucianism? Especially if the warriors themselves conceived of their loyalty, self-sacrifice etc in Confucian terms? If the the entire language of loyalty is drawn from the Chinese classics? The most this excerpt shows is that other people besides Nitobe were inventing fictitious pasts and "essences of the Japanese spirit." The point remains that "Bushido" (as presented in this article) is a product of late 19th and early 20th century historical imagination.
This article is even spinning off further innacurate articles. If a text depicts warriors, it is now automatically part of the imaginary corpus of "Bushido literature." Talking about it in the Tokugawa period is highly questionable, and downright ridiculous when it starts being ascribed to the Kojiki. Now we have "Japanese chivalry" existing even before the emergence of a warrior class!
Nick Kapur's revision was excellent. I don't see any compelling reason why it has not been adopted. Presumably the page should reflect scholarly consensus, and not the mistaken beliefs of martial arts enthusiasts.
So, why are these changes blocked? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.194.201.74 (talk) 23:21, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
Grammar
First sentence: "is a Japanese a phrase". Wtf? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.40.165.11 (talk) 17:02, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
"Bushidō" as historical fiction
There is criticism of Nitobe's work as a fabrication, cobbled together from disparate half-truths. See also Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit (https://www.tofugu.com/japan/bushido/, December 8, 2014). How much of our article reflects history, and how much reflects mythology? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ 17:28, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
To add onto this:
Nitobe's work is generally accepted as historical fabrication within Japan. His writings have no basis in reality, with the writer himself believing he had invented the word "武士道" (bushido), due to a complete lack of research done on his part. His writings were criticised heavily by Inoue Tetsujiro, Uemura Masahisa, and Tsuda Sōkichi. All of whom were significantly more prominent historical writers at the time.
He states this in his own writings:
Inazō Nitobe. Bushido: The Soul of Japan "It is not a written code; at best it consists of a few maxims handed down from mouth to mouth or coming from the pen of some well-known warrior or savant."
He provides no evidence or supporting work to support this quote, and doubles down later in life.
"Some thirty years ago, when I first wrote an essay on the moral code of the Japanese and called it“Bushido”, there was raised a question both in Japan and among some scholars abroad as to the legitimacy of such a term. They had heard of Shido or Budo but never of “Bushido”. Some of them went even further and doubted the existence of such a code. … But the more I think of it, the stronger grows my conviction that we have been under the sway of ideas and opinions unformulated but none the less potent, whose guiding principle was Honor. And as it came to existence during the days of feudalism, it partook the coloring and taste of the period. Since it was made a class morality of the knights, samurai, it laid particular stress on honor; and because it was primarily meant for observance by that class, we may call it Bushido, the Way of the Fighting Knights.”58
Ōta,Yūzō, Taiheiyō no hashi toshite no Nitobe Inazō, 20-21
Nitobe Inazō. Lectures on Japan, 124-125.
Oleg Benesch, Bushido : the creation of a martial ethic in late Meiji Japan
Oleg Benesch, Inventing the Way of the Samurai: Nationalism, Internationalism, and Bushido in Modern Japan, First edition
These assertiosn fall into direct conflict with the existence of the following works:
Hishikawa Moronobu " kokon bushido ezukushi" 菱川師宣の「古今武士道絵つくし」（1684）
Ogyū Sorai "Sorai Sensei Tōmonsho" 荻生徂徠『徂来先生答問書』(1725)
「世上に武士道と申習し申候一筋、古之書に之れ有り候。君子の道にもかなひ、人を治むる道にも成り申すべきやの由、御尋ね候。」
Constalation (talk) 01:32, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
Multiple Types of Bushido
The page has improved significantly to explain the multiple Bushido types through history. Such as: Ancient Bushido (Heian-Kamakura, 794-1333), Sengoku Bushido (Sengoku period, 1336-1603), Edo Bushido (Early to late Edo (1603–1868), Meiji Bushido (1868-1945) and Contemporary Bushido (1950–Present): it is still used in various forms such as business, communication, martial arts and a way of life. Each type has distinct features. Bushido was originally focused on valor and later gained morals for attitude and behaviour. "Bushidō (武士道, "the way of the warrior") are regulations for samurai attitudes, behavior and lifestyle." Bushido is best used as an overarching term for all the codes, practices, philosophies and principles of samurai culture. Bushido is by extension the Japanese way of the warrior. Thus Nitobe Inazō's popular book "Bushido: The Soul of Japan (1900)" must not be used as the primary interpretation, because it does not represent all bushido types and interpretations by samurai and important figures. There are earlier works which describe bushido long before Nitobe. The historical development was put in chronological order with additional references. Etymology was expanded with important terminology. Additionally, valuable images were added about Bushido such as: Koyo Gunkan by Kosaka Masanobu (1616), Kashoki (Amusing Notes) by Saito Chikamori (1642) and Book cover of Kokon Bushido Ezukushi (Bushido Through The Ages) by artist Hishikawa Moronobu (1685). Images of the Hagakure and Musashi's Book of Five Rings could be included. - Artanisen (talk) 01:08, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
The "Ancient Bushido" section includes vague information that is uncited and doesn't really make sense: "The old samurai didn't discuss morals of the modern samurai. The exception is feelings of mercy and natural feelings. The focus was overwhelming others by force, governing and protecting the land. The substantive aspect was important. The samurai of this time were terrifying and pure fighters." It is unclear who the "old samurai" or "modern samurai" are, how/why they would be discussing each others' morals in ancient times, what "the exception" is for "mercy and natural feelings" (and what those things even are), what "focus" is being discussed, what "the substantive aspect" means and how it was important, etc. The statement that they were "terrifying and pure fighters" is both extremely vague and a value judgment unsupported by a citation; terrifying according to whom? Pure in what way? This just sounds like someone's opinion that isn't clearly related to any source. 65.144.88.134 (talk) 17:13, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
- I agree with 65.144.88.134 (talk · contribs), the "Ancient bushido" section was poorly presented and not backed up by the references. I have been bold and removed that section. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ 22:33, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
Styling bushido consistently throughout
Looking through this article, I have found bushido spelled with and without the macron over the o, and both italicized and not, and both capitalized and not.
One of the tenets of good writing is consistent style; that is, except for direct quotations, bushido should be typed the same way every time. I suggest using "bushido" without the macron, in roman (non-italicized) type, and lower-cased.
In 2010, this article was moved from Bushidō to Bushido by community consensus. That is my justification for removing the macron in all references to the term. I think there is sufficient usage of lower-cased "bushido" in the sources used in this article to justify lower-casing it ourselves. However, whether it should be italicized is a closer call.
The Misplaced Pages Manual of Style instructs us to italicize romanized words that are not in common use in the English language. However, looking at our sources, it seems italicized as often as not, though whether those sources are authorities on whether a word is in common usage in the English language is a separate argument. I asked a linguist her opinion about the commonality of "bushido" and she said she thinks it is common enough in English to use roman type. I think it is common enough, but I know that society at large is not saying "bushido" every day. So I leave it up to community consensus.
Should we italicize bushido? I vote no. — JarmihiGOCE (talk) 11:35, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
- How to style the term depends in part on how it's being used.
- If it's being used as a Japanese term, then we should keep the macron and italicize. The first sentence in the article lede is one such example, and the caption on the image of the kanji spelling is another.
- If it's being used as an English term, then we should lose the macron and not italicize, and also not capitalize. The running text in the Bushido#Origin section is one such example.
- HTH, ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ 00:41, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 17:22, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
Categories:
- C-Class level-5 vital articles
- Misplaced Pages level-5 vital articles in History
- C-Class vital articles in History
- C-Class Japan-related articles
- Top-importance Japan-related articles
- WikiProject Japan articles
- C-Class military history articles
- C-Class Asian military history articles
- Asian military history task force articles
- C-Class Japanese military history articles
- Japanese military history task force articles
- C-Class Martial arts articles
- C-Class Religion articles
- Top-importance Religion articles
- WikiProject Religion articles