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Editorial See other Editorial Articles Title: Bushido, Class, and Governance Japan has a complex and turbulent history. It is one of the oldest civilization lines on earth. Ten thousand years BC, tools and pottery were being made there. For various periods during the last 2,000 years it was ruled by emperors beneath which there existed the rough equivalent of barons, called diamyo, who exercised enormous power over tracts of land which were in fact kingdoms. There were periods when the diamyo had more power than the emperors, whose god-like positions separated them from descending into direct management of the nation. As one might suspect, the diamyo varied in quality or intention. Like the kings of Europe, they occasionally contested each other over power and ambition leading to battles in which the people were caught in the middle. Interspersed with this, there were periods when, in attempts to establish order or stability, as well as pursuit of their own ambitions, the nation was taken over by military dictatorships with generals becoming shoguns or warlords. The instruments of creating and perpetuating the prevailing orders of governance at any particular time were the Samurai, a class of warriors who served various diamyo (quasi barons or small kings) or generals. Those people or movements with the most, or best trained, Samurai could impose their will as well as protect themselves and their people from other aggressive elements. In 1868, as a response to outside military pressure or display against which Japan realized it was defenseless, the move was made to unify and stabilize Japan under a then 16 year old god emperor. Various reforms and modernizations were undertaken including weakening of the feudal system with the idea of eventually dismantling it along with the rivalries and turbulence it produced. This era of change is known as the restoration of the Meiji --meaning a return of power to the emperor who exercised a more direct influence in governance, along with an enlightenment. Some of this will be clarified here later. Between the 9th and 12 centuries, there developed a comprehensive code, Bushido, the "Way of the Warrior." It was a code and way of life for Samurai. It is a persistent pattern among human beings that anything which can be corrupted will be corrupted, and anything can also be represented or misrepresented according to various interests and impulses. What is portrayed or commonly thought of as Bushido is madmen randomly chopping off heads, or ruthlessly cruel Japanese officers running prisoner of war camps in World War Two. There is no doubt that certain aspects of Bushido were isolated from broader context of its history and entirety to be used for military and political purposes in WWII to induce a type of mindless fanaticism. Such fanaticism is temporarily useful to those who believe they can encourage and direct it. But, the encompassed or adopted irrationality develops a persistent life of its own which is likely to be uncontrollable and/or destructive. (As a didactic aside, the fanatical mind, once developed in a population, is a persistent warped personality characteristic or mental process, often paranoid, which may take generations to erase. When one outlet for expression of that condition is lost, the personality tends to channel its aggressive irrationality into a different outlet or target. Fanaticism is a persistent way of life and thought in which the individual has too much invested, with too little investment or development elsewhere, and in which there are too many psychological displacements or sublimations, to be given up easily. In other words, the fanatic often has little other capacity to do anything but be a fanatic. It is also a fact that conditioning people to mindless susceptibility to propaganda creates an irrational population pool in which people are uncontrollably dangerous to themselves and each other. The propaganda-based society, especially when combined with unattenuated Id-based destructive hedonism, is composed of mindless and at times savage schools of frustrated fish looking for emotional outlets for the frustration of problems they bring upon themselves or that are brought upon them by their belief in, and acting upon, the warped messages they are fed, and who are therefore unsuitable for rational citizenship. That is, when people become licensed or encouraged to follow ungoverned impulses, destructive chaos develops, while they also demand not to be charged with irresponsibility under licensed self-centered primitivity of thought. This is the essential condition evolving in the United States today with a massive out-of-wedlock birth rate and mentally-enfeebling but captivating momentarily enjoyable dug use coupled with selling the licensing message that the resulting problems are because the social system has failed or not enough is being done for the people. Thus, we have an extensive population creating dissatisfaction and frustration for itself, or for others, while misattributing the causes elsewhere and channeling themselves into forms of enraged dedicated social and political struggle instead of self-examination or self-improvement. From an analytical distance what is seen is an almost amusing vortex of psychodynamically dishonest self centered self destructive behavior mediated by a highly developed system of rationalized thought disorder with the resulting bitterness and chaos being spun off as a temper tantrum channeled into sociopolitical movements against the sane rational world. One way to control a society is to buy the people by proselytizing a destructive hedonism, then make them dependent upon you for supporting a group defense against admitting their destructiveness and self-destructiveness. Any time you can encourage people to destroy their own personal lives and then side with them in misdirecting or sublimating their bitterness and frustration over the consequences into political movements, you have the upper hand. They'll follow you in dependence while they swill and destroy themselves and the nation, further contributing to the pattern. The reward for enabling a people from resolving the developmental conglicts of adolescence, or from denying such conflicts even exist, is political power.) From the noblest of beginnings, maintenance of quality becomes a problem over the passage of time within any concept or institution. Corruption, misuse, and weakness creep in. Thus, the successors to the most benign and capable monarchs are apt to deteriorate in quality. Religions continually decay as a result of nibbling at their margins until the central importances or theorems are eventually either diluted by deconstructive qualifications or no longer remain. Even in the sciences and education, the essentials, discipline and effort of an outstanding idea or area are quickly lost or obscured in a multitude of leeches and migrating mediocrities fastening onto, or burrowing into, a field to suit their own interests, resulting in a dilution or pollution of the area of study. The United States has failed to maintain the quality of minds in leadership compared to those who founded the nation. And so it was that Bushido became corrupted for purposes of WWII --and occasionally at other times for other purpose. Bushido is said to have been originally strongly influenced by Buddhism, Zen, Confucianism, and Shintoism, which, combined, is about as advanced a philosophy as mankind had at the time. Bushido is, or was, not unlike the chivalry and codes of the European knights. "It puts emphasis on loyalty, self sacrifice, justice, sense of shame, refined manners, purity, modesty, frugality, martial spirit, honor and affection" Much of what immediately follows is extracted, directly or indirectly, from the authoritative works: The Soul of Japan, An Exposition of Japanese Thought by Inazo Nitobe Ph. D. [1905] and "Bushido: The Soul of Japan" 1899. Dr. Nitobe was a Christian with as intelligent a mind as one would hope to find. At the time of his work, Bushido and Samurai were directky accessable. Virtues associated with Bushido: "One should have restraint and deep sympathy in all things. Rectitude in Justice and Morality Courage Benevolence Respect Honesty Honor Glory Loyalty Preservation of ethics Respect for or piety to one's elders/parents Wisdom Care for the aged From Buddhism, Bushido gets its relationship to danger and death. The samurai do not fear death because they believe as Buddhism teaches, after death one will be reincarnated and may live another life here on earth. The samurai are warriors from the time they become samurai until their death; they have no fear of danger. Through Zen, a school of Buddhism one can reach the ultimate "Absolute." Zen meditation teaches one to focus and reach a level of thought words cannot describe. Zen teaches one to "know thyself" and do not to limit yourself. Samurai used this as a tool to drive out fear, unsteadiness and ultimately mistakes. These things could get him killed." Shintoism, another Japanese doctrine, gives Bushido its loyalty and patriotism. Shintoism includes ancestor-worship which makes the Imperial family the fountain-head of the whole nation. It awards the emperor a god-like reverence. He is the embodiment of Heaven on earth. With such loyalty, the samurai pledge themselves to the emperor and their daimyo or feudal landlords, and to higher ranking samurai. Shintoism also provides the backbone for patriotism to their country, Japan. They believe the land is not merely there for their needs, "it is the sacred abode to the gods, the spirits of their forefathers . . ." (Nitobe, p14). The land is cared for, protected and nurtured through an intense patriotism." Confucianism gives Bushido its beliefs in relationships with the human world, their environment and family. Confucianism's stress on the five moral relations between master and servant, father and son, husband and wife, older and younger brother, and friend and friend, are what the samurai follow. However, some among the samurai disagreed strongly with many of the writings of Confucius. They believed that man should not sit and read books all day, nor shall he write poems all day, for an intellectual specialist was considered to be a machine. Instead, Bushido believes man and the universe were made to be alike in both the spirit and ethics." Along with these virtues, Bushido also holds justice, benevolence, love, sincerity, honesty, and self-control in utmost respect. Justice is one of the main factors in the code of the Samurai. Crooked ways and unjust actions are thought to be lowly and inhumane. Love and benevolence were supreme virtues and princely acts. Samurai followed a specific etiquette in every day life as well as in war. Sincerity and honesty were as valued as their lives. Bushi no ichi-gon, or "the word of a samurai," transcends a pact of complete faithfulness and trust. With such pacts there was no need for a written pledge; it was thought beneath one's dignity." (This produced a conflict between American business and law versus Japanese culture. The concept of a written legally enforceable business contract was intrusion of a deep insult to the Japenese code of honor. RLK) (It is stated that the factors which make up Bushido were few and simple. I see Bushido as quite complex in many areas and through various time periods. (RLK)) "Bushido created a way of life that was to nourish a nation through its most troubling times, through civil wars, despair and uncertainty. "The wholesome unsophisticated nature of our warrior ancestors derived ample food for their spirit from a sheaf of commonplace and fragmentary teachings, gleaned as it were on the highways and byways of ancient thought, and, stimulated by the demands of the age formed from these gleanings a new and unique way of life" (Nitobe). In the year 1256, the Shogunal Deputy in Kyoto, Hojo Shigetoki (1198-1261) wrote a letter to his son and house elders of his clan. The letter, now known as "The Message Of Master Gokurakuji," emphasized the importance of loyalty to one's master:" When one is serving officially or in the master's court, he should not think of a hundred or a thousand people, but should consider only the importance of the master. Nor should he draw the line at his own life or anything else he considers valuable. Even if the master is being phlegmatic and one goes unrecognized, he should know that he will surely have the divine protection of the gods and Buddhas." Written in kanamajiri style, "The Message Of Master Gokurakuji" is described as being "....basically concerned with man's moral duties and the ideal behavior for leaders of the warrior class. The predominant tone of the work is a Buddhist sympathy for all living beings and an awareness of the functions of karma. Women, children, and those of lower social standing are to be treated kindly and with regard, and even the concept of loyalty to superiors is dealt with more in a religious sense than a Confucian one." In 1383 the feudal lord Shiba Yoshimasa (1350-1410) wrote "The Chikubasho," a set of precepts for the young men of his clan. Shiba Yoshimasa was a warrior leader during the Namboku and Muromachi Periods, and was known as an administrator, general, and poet. William Scott Wilson, Author of "Ideals of the Samurai" describes the Chikubasho as "A short list of precepts written in a classical Japanese style, the Chikubasho displays both the ethical morality of the warrior and the tasteful lifestyle of the aristocracy. Its tone is a combination of a manly Confucian approach reflecting honesty and fairness, and a Buddhist sympathy for others." (Various periods and styles referred to here represent various cultural geographical areas and dominence of various diamyo or ruling dynastys. One would need a rather complete set of historical maps to place them exactly. RLK) In his writings, Shiba Yoshimasa dictated that a warrior should not hesitate to lay down his life for an important cause such as the defense of the emperor: First, a man whose profession is the use of arms should think and then act upon not only his own fame, but also that of his descendants. He should not scandalize his name forever by holding his one and only life too dear. On the other hand, in the light of this, to consider this life that is given to us only once as nothing more than dust and ashes, and lose it at a time when one should not, would be to gain a reputation that is not worth mentioning. One's main purpose in throwing away his life is to do so either for the sake of the Emperor or in some great undertaking of a military general." The famous warlord Imagawa Ryoshun wrote in 1412: In governing the country, it is dangerous to lack even one of the virtues of humanity, righteousness, etiquette and wisdom. It is forbidden to forget the great debt of kindness one owes to his master and ancestors and thereby make light of the virtues of loyalty and filial piety.....There is a primary need to distinguish loyalty from disloyalty and to establish rewards and punishments.....it is written in the Four Books and Five Classics as well as in the military writings that in protecting the country, if one is ignorant in the study of literature, he will be unable to govern. Just as Buddha preached the various laws in order to save all living beings, one must rack one's brains and never depart from the ways of both warrior and literary man. (This emphasis on literacy and study under this particular personality seems to contrast with the antipathy toward intellectual pursuit mentioned earlier.(RLK)) Imagawa Ryoshun was a leading general and strategist of his time. He wrote prolifically despite being posted to military hotspots by the Shogun. His job was to suppress rebellion by rival samurai clans. Famed for his writings "Nan Taiheiki" and "Michiyukiburi", he penned "The Regulations" to his brother Tadaki in traditional kanbun script. They were a required study for traditional Japanese as a guide to proper moral behavior. (Widely respected, "The Regulations" remained popular until World War II.) Having taken Buddhist vows, Ryoshun is greatly admired as having achieved the warrior ideal striking a balance between the military and literary arts." In the 15th century, the Governor of Echizen, Asakura Toshikage (1428-1481) would also stress the importance of loyalty in his writings to his followers:" "In the fief of the Asakura, one should not determine hereditary chief retainers. A man should be assigned according to his ability and loyalty. One should not entrust a position and land to a man who has no talent, even if his family has held such for generations." (This was a novel position in a world in which, including Europe, much of position and power was summarily and unquestionably transferred through right of heredity.) Near the beginning of the 16th century, the Samurai general Hojo Nagauji (1432-1519) would write: "Above all, believe in the gods and Buddhas. To worship the gods and Buddhas is the correct conduct for a man. It can be said that one will be in conformity with the feelings of the gods and Buddhas if he will simply make his heart straight-forward and calm, respect honestly and wholeheartedly those above him and have pity on those below, consider that which exists to exist and that which does not exist to not exist, and recognize things just as they are. (Thus, he asserted one of the principles of Objectiveism, A is A, centuries before Ayn Rand.) With such a frame of mind, one will have divine protection even though he does not pray. But if his mind is not straight, he had best be prudent lest it be said that he has been abandoned by Heaven, prayerful or not." It is hardly necessary to record that both Learning and the military arts are the Way of the Warrior, for it is an ancient law that one should have Learning on the left and the martial arts on the right. But this is something that will not be obtainable if one has not prepared for it beforehand." Hojo concluded his list of precepts by stating "To be a samurai is to be polite at all times." Also known as Hojo Soun, Lord Hojo was greatly admired by other daimyo as a good general and administrator. In addition to attracting more samurai to Odawara, he cut crop taxes from one-half to two-fifths of the harvest, and generally looked out for the welfare of his people." Hojo's Twenty-One Precepts were written some time after Hojo Soun had become a priest, and reflect the fullness of his own experiences. The articles are basically rules for the daily life of the common warrior, and show his familiarity and sympathy for those in the lower echelons. The subject matter ranges from encouraging the study of poetry and horsemanship and the avoidance of games like chess and go, to advice on how to keep one's house in better order and well-protected. There is a strong tone of self-reliance throughout, reflecting Hojo Soun's unsparingly meticulous character and his own rise to power. The great Warlord Takeda Shingen (1521AD-1573AD) wrote in his house codes: "Everyone knows that if a man doesn't hold filial piety toward his own parents he would also neglect his duties toward his lord. Such a neglect means a disloyalty toward humanity. Therefore such a man doesn't deserve to be called 'samurai'." Several famous sengoku daimyo mention Bushido in their writings. Lord Kato Kiyomasa (1562-1611) orders his men to follow it:" If a man does not investigate into the matter of Bushido daily, it will be difficult for him to die a brave and manly death. Thus it is essential to engrave this business of the warrior into one's mind well.....One should put forth great effort in matters of learning. One should read books concerning military matters, and direct his attention exclusively to the virtues of loyalty and filial piety.....Having been born into the house of a warrior, one's intentions should be to grasp the long and the short swords and to die." In 1622, the Daimyo Kuroda Nagamasa (1568-1623)would emphasize the balance of the arts of peace (Confucian learning and literature) with the arts of war, and encourages fairness and sympathy toward the other three classes of people in his writings: "If a general who is to maintain the province does not have a special consciousness, his task will be a difficult one to attain. His attitudes must not be the same as the ordinary man's. Firstly, he must be correct in manners and etiquette, must not let self-interest into government, and must take care of the common people...... he should not forget even for a moment that he is the model for the four classes of people." (During this period the classes were conceived of as Samurai, peasants/farmers, artisans, and merchants which were hereditorily determined. There was a fifth class of outcasts who failed to become involved in any category. As I have been instructed elsewhere, there are some inhabitants of the asiatic world who are looked upon as non people. RLK) Generally speaking, the master of a province should discharge his duties with love and humanity, should not listen to slander, and should exercise the good. His governing should be as clear as the bright sun in the bright sky, and he should think things over deeply in his mind and make no mistakes." The arts of peace and the arts of war are like the two wheels of a cart which, lacking one, will have difficulty in standing.....When one has been born into the house of a military commander, he should not forget the arts of war even for a moment..... it is essential that he know the Way of Truth, that he be particular about his efforts in the scrutinizing of every matter, that he be just in all affairs and make no mistakes, that he be correct in recognizing good and evil and demonstrate rewards and punishments clearly, and that he have a deep sympathy for all people. Again, what is called cherishing the Way of the Warrior is not a matter of extolling the martial arts above all things and becoming a scaremonger. It is rather in being well-informed in military strategy, in forever pondering one's resources of pacifying disturbances, in training one's soldiers without remiss, in rewarding those who have done meritorious deeds and punishing those who have committed crimes, in being correct in one's evaluatin of bravery and cowardice, and in not forgetting this matter of "the battle" even when the world is at peace. It is simply brashness to make a specialty of the martial arts and to be absorbed in one's individual efforts. Such is certainly not the Way of the Warrior of a provincial lord or military commander." Kuroda Nagamasa was the son of a Christian daimyo, Kuroda Josui, and was baptized Simeon in 1583. He was to become well known as a great strategist. While still young, Kuroda was put under the auspices of Oda Nobunaga and later served under Toyotomi Hideyoshi. In 1592 and again in 1597 he shared command of the vanguard invasion troops in Korea with Konishi Yukinaga and Kato Kiyomasa. Although he had helped Konishi out of some military tight spots in Korea and was like Konishi a Christian, Kuroda supported Tokugawa Ieyasu during the fighting at Sekigahara, and for his efforts was enfieffed at Chikuzen becoming Lord of Fukuoka Castle." (The period from 1467 - 1615 AD. was marked by a series of internal wars between diamo during which their samurai armies waged civil war. In 1590 Toyotomi Hideyoshi succeeded in uniting Japan under his rule. Upon his death, war broke out between geographically Eastern and Western diamyo for control of the nation. The Eastern coalition was led by Tokugawa Ieyasu while Western groups were led by Ishida Mitsunari. The definitive battle, little known in the Western world, took place near the town of Sekigahara in 1600 AD with various groups within the coalitions fielding armies of 30,000 or more men in one of the most massive ground battles in history, with little provision for, or intention of, taking prisoners, during which a significant proportion of Japan's male population met their deaths. The Eastern diamyo clans won whereupon Tokugawa subsequently consolidated his power to become the Shogun of all Japan, imposing internal peace and stability. The Tokugawa Shogunate dynasty would last last until 1868 ater it had been cowed by Commodore Perry's gunboats during the 1850s, producing the restoration of rule by emperors. While it produced internal stability, military and economic progress under the shogunate was too stunted to confront jostling from the advancing outside world, and thus the shoganate collapsed, mediated by some concurrent revolution and internal war. RLK) Both Kuroda Nagamasa and his father Josui were well known for their regard for the advice of others, and Nagamasa even set aside one night a month when he would sit with a number of his trusted retainers and allow all to talk freely with the mutual promise that none would become angry over what was said, or gossip about it later. These were called the "Meetings Without Anger." The Regulations given here were written a year before Kuroda's death to his eldest son, Tadayuki." In 1645, the swordsman Miyamoto Musashi wrote in his famous book Go Rin No Sho (A Book of Five Rings): It is said the warrior's is the twofold way of pen and sword, and he should have a taste for both ways. Even if a man has no natural ability he can be a warrior by sticking assiduously to both divisions of the Way. Generally speaking, the way of the warrior is resolute acceptance of death." Bushido ethics: Bushido expanded and formalized the earlier code of the samurai, and stressed frugality, loyalty, mastery of martial arts, and honor to the death. Under the Bushido ideal, if a samurai failed to uphold his honor he could regain it by performing seppuku (ritual suicide). According to Nitobe, "As to strictly ethical doctrines, the teachings of Confucius were the most prolific source of Bushido.....Next to Confucius, Mencius exercised an immense authority over Bushido. His forcible and often quite democratic theories were exceedingly taking to sympathetic natures, and they were even thought dangerous to, and subversive of, the existing social order, hence his works were for a long time under censure. Still, the words of this master mind found permanent lodgment in the heart of the samurai." (Mencius was a Chinese philosopher and follower of Confucius in the fourth century BC. He may have been one of the most developed minds in history. The full complexity of his thought is beyond examination here. He was a believer in a human good that could be obtained through cultivation. (It might be argued that he anticipated Auguste Compte's sociological positivism more than 1,500 years later.) He also advanced the position that a king retains authority to rule only if he practices honesty, generosity, self-sacrifice, humility, receptiveness to instruction, caring for the people, and a sense of responsibility. Consequently, the authority of the nobility or ruling class was asserted to be highly conditional. This was a novel idea at the time and one apt to produce distrust and annoying limits upon rulers. If it were applied, it would also conflict with demands for unconditional loyalty from subjects. Thus, the writings of Mencius introduced a complexity and source of potential conflict within Busido. RLK) "Bushido ethics were also influenced by Shintoism, the Chinese Classics, and the Rinzai school of Zen Buddhism, which promoted austerity, detachment and "no-mind" concentration as an ultimate approach to combat situations as well as daily life, and considered martial arts as a way to self-realization and to the expression of one's Buddha-nature." (The "no-mind" condition is difficult to understand and is apt to be misinterpreted. It consists of direct reactions almost spinally reflexive in nature and uninterupted in sequence of immediate perception and action in the physical classical martial arts. This is not to say that cerebral functioning does not exercise control. Cerebral processes monitor the no-mind mode and are the on-off switch. Under the highly developed condition the no-mind mode was, and is, like a horse that could be ridden at will or necessity under control of the rider. RLK) "Bushido was widely practiced and it is surprising how uniform the samurai code remained over time, crossing over all geographic and socio-economic backgrounds of the samurai. (The samurai represented a wide populace numbering between 7 to 10% of the Japanese population, and the first Meiji era census at the end of the 19th century counted 1,282,000 members of the "high samurais", allowed to ride a horse, and 492,000 members of the "low samurai", allowed to wear two swords but not to ride a horse, in a country of about 25 million. (After, "Japan. A historical survey" Mikiso Hane)). (The general population was forbidden formal weapons, leading to surrepticious development of agricultural tools such as butterfly knives and nunchaku for use as weapons in parts of the Japanese empire. As one might expect, the presence and support of so many Samurai was becomig a serious economic drain upon the nation. RLK) Although Japan enjoyed a period of peace during the Sakoku ("Closed country") period from the 17th to te mid-19th century, the samurai class remained and continued to play a center role in the policing of the country. The status of the samurai was abolished after the Meiji Restoration in the mid to late 1800s, but the former samurai continued to play a key role in the industrialization of Japan and its traditions." (Part of this was result of the fact that the Bushido emphasis on literacy and study made them useful after their role as warriors had ended. RLK) From Nitobe CHAPTER IV COURAGE, THE SPIRIT OF DARING AND BEARING "Courage is doing what is right. To run all kinds of hazards, to jeopardize one's self, to rush into the jaws of death --these are too often identified with Valor, and in the profession of arms such rashness of conduct what Shakespeare calls, "valor misbegot" is unjustly applauded; but not so in the Precepts of Knighthood. Death for a cause unworthy of dying for, was called a"dog's death." "To rush into the thick of battle and to be slain in it" says a Prince of Mito, "is easy enough, and the merest churl is equal to the task; but," he continues, "it is true courage to live when it is right to live, and to die only when it is right to die, and yet the Prince had not even heard of the name of Plato, who defines courage as "the knowledge of things that a man should fear and that he should not fear." A distinction which is made in the West between moral and physical courage has long been recognized among us. What samurai youth has not heard of "Great Valor" and the "Valor of a Villein?" Valor, Fortitude, Bravery, Fearlessness, Courage, being the qualities of soul which appeal most easily to juvenile minds, and which can be trained by exercise and example, were, so to speak, the most popular virtues, early emulated among the youth. Stories of military exploits were repeated almost before boys left their mother's breast." The writings of Confucius and Mencius formed the principal text-books for youths and the highest authority in discussion among the old. A mere acquaintance with the classics of these two sages was held, however, in no high esteem. A common proverb ridicules one who has only an intellectual knowledge of Confucius, as a man ever studious but ignorant of Analects. (Analects referrs to a record of the thought of Confuscious. RLK) A typical samurai calls a literary savant a book-smelling sot. Another compares learning to an ill-smelling vegetable that must be boiled and boiled before it is fit for use. A man who has read a little smells a little pedantic, and a man who has read much smells yet more so; both are alike unpleasant. The writer meant thereby that knowledge becomes really such only when it is assimilated in the mind of the learner and shows in his character." (The basis of character is also sentient intelligence. Deficiency of such renders one no more capable of making rational decisions about moral or ethical application, than capable of making decisions in other areas. Absence of mature sentient intellect makes one unpredictable and untrustworthy in all things. RLK) An intellectual specialist was considered a machine. Intellect itself was considered subordinate to ethical emotion. Man and the universe were conceived to be alike spiritual and ethicaly. Bushido could not accept the judgment of Huxley, that the cosmic process was unmoral." Bushido made light of knowledge as such. It was not pursued as an end in itself, but as a means to the attainment of wisdom. Hence, he who stopped short of this end was regarded no higher than a convenient machine, which could turn out poems and maxims at bidding. Thus, knowledge was conceived as identical with its practical application in life; and this Socratic doctrine found its greatest exponent in the Chinese philosopher, Wan Yang Ming, who never wearies of repeating, To know and to act are one and the same." (There is is this last sentence an implicit concept of false intellect which was viewed upon with disgust under Bushido. RLK) "We may remember at this juncture that even among so democratic a people as the English, "the sentiment of personal fidelity to a man and his posterity which their Germanic ancestors felt for their chiefs, has," as Monsieur Boutmy recently said, "only passed more or less into their profound loyalty to the race and blood of their princes, as evidenced in their extraordinary attachment to the dynasty." The state built upon the rock of Honor and fortified by the same shall we call it the Ehrenstaat or, after the manner of Carlyle, the Heroarchy? is fast falling into the hands of quibbling lawyers and gibbering politicians armed with logic-chopping engines of war." From the above, in contrast to the belief by some authors, Bushido was far from uniform. There can be seen variability in Bushido correlating with variations in personality between warlords, emperors, generals impulses or needs of the times, or whatever. In alternate times, under alternate leaders, the Samurai were expected to be literate students of the highest intellectual undertaking as it existed anywhere at that time. In other cases, another leader wanted unthinking individual war machines beyond acquiring and acceptance of those cognitive elements creating disregard for their own lives in battle. In some cases and within some leaders the Samurai was exhorted to develop the recttude, benevolence, empathy, love, and sense of justice characterizing sainthood. In other cases such refinements were to be absent in service to petty quarrels or unreasoned ambitions of lords that inflicted great loss of life. Clearly, various principles were lain aside at various times for purposes of convenience or ambitions. What are the weaknesses of Bushido? The first among them is the one often most consistently and highly stressed: unconditional loyalty to leaders and certain other prescribed people. This represents the influence of Shintoism. The loyalty to the diamyo, lord, emperor, or whatever was to be unquestioning and absolute. This always carries an inherent danger. The role of unconditional loyalty established under optimum conditions of morality and optimum initial people becomes a social form, legality, or institution which further, or eventually, becomes dangerous if the sequence of specific personalities to which loyalty is to be given change in character. Thus, unconditional loyalty to a lord or god-emperor may have some social and spiritual advantage at an initial stage of development and conception when the emperor is someone of quality and character. If, as time progresses, the succession of lords or emperors results in quality and character centered upon pursuit of personal ambition or personal eccentricity, then loyalty to such becomes an instrument of corruption or destruction. As such, given an ethic of unconditional loyalty, there may come a time when such an ethic brings one into direct conflict with other important moral or ethical areas. Furthermore, while Busido and the Samurai were instruments of stability and justice during periods of internal peace and rationality, they could, or would, become misused as instruments of chaos and instability in unconditional service to the greed, irrational ambitions, and petty feuds or jealousies leading to warfare between diamyo, shoguns, or whoever. The faults within this system canceled the virtues and, as we have seen, brought periods of internal destruction upon Japan. As a general principle, it should never be forgotten that the quality or morality of service within unconditional loyality to an individual man/personality or group is never better that the morality or intention of that individual man/personality or group, or even nation. Thus, the Samurai was faced with either a potential, or existant, conflict between unconditional loyalty versus other previously mentioned virtues. The conflict was superfically resolved by quasi-religious belief in a god-lord/emperor acting with unknowable ultimate justice or wisdom, together with a stoic blindness and psychological repression under which conscious sensation of moral/ethical conflict or turbulence was minimized through a system of highly inculcated rationalizations. While, on the whole, the Samurai was formally expected to maintain a profound level of constant introspection, such introspection was not encouraged to extend into certain areas. In some cases the level of study or self examination was often meant only for the directed purpose of rationalizing blind obedience. It is the habit among some people and mentalities that developed or misplaced pride in dramatic absolute adherence to a doctrine or institution or person displaces needed specific examination of those doctrines or institutions, or people, especially when such pride is psychologically reinforced within those institutions or by society in general. Pride in one's adherence or reliable conformity lends itself to unexamined fanaticism or evaluative blindness. Hitler extolled the value of death under the anathesia of glory. Stated in another form, there is a cautionless and physically insensate condition that occurs under the wildness of temporary or miscreated emotion --including fanatical euphoria or fanatical ideological dependence. Such anathesia also anathetizes or displaces the process of introspection or analysis. Psychoanalytically, there is occasionally seen a complex peculiarity of mind such that proof of capacity for dedication becomes supremely important while that to which one is dedicated becomes ill-examined. Commitment to false and destructive causes or crusades to the point of self-destruction has the paradoxical secondary effect of subjectively noble demonstration of that capacity. Thus, suicidal or self-destructive behavior become satisfying or sought-after --often described by words of glittering abstraction. Integrated with, or supporting, this personality are a number of factors such as coordinate language systems, receipt of attention, release of hostility through also co-inflicting the same destruction upon others, something called reaction or reversal formation, distance from a more concrete world of competent responsibility, feelings of belonging or membership, and so forth. Complete examination of this personality type would require a separate book. For the present it is only necessary that suc be recognized. A person intoxicated with position in, or adherence to, various ideologies, doctrines, or institutions is essentially an adolescent mind or dangerous automaton. As a corollary, those who mistake adherence to programmed or standardized stupidity, which some proudly adopt almost as a religion, as being demonstration of moral character or superiority are among the most dangerous people on earth. When ideological stupidity, or destructiveness, or self destruction become a badge of self-sacrificial nobility or honor in a large proportion of the population, a society or nation will not last long. The demand by some for self-sacrificial nobility in others also can slide into groveling servitude to those some, and slavery for others. This is the direction America has been following in recent decades. The famed John Kennedy exhortation of, ask not what your country can do for you, but rather ask what you can do for your country," is a dangerous poetic recipe for exploitable selflessness. Fanaticicsm may form the basis for personal reliability, which is a desirable trait among those being led. In small or specialized portions of the population fanaticism may be advantageous under certain situations such as military operations. Given destructive, corrupt, or incompetent leadership, whether that leadership be a specific personality or an idea, fanaticism will lead to destruction of that nation, or attack upon other nations, to the extent fanaticism exists in significant and critically positioned portions of the population. To the degree that fanaticism is the successful basis in achieving conquest, it must be continued or what has been conquered will be lost. Fanaticism creates ferocious warriors, but not serious thinkers with an overall view or sense of caution. Those who have been in the military know the worst thing that can happen is to be under the command of an officer drunked up on cliches or blind emotional attachments to thoughtless esprit. Adherence to acts of stupidity, or even the deaths of his men, may be subjectively interpreted as triumphant evidence of superior unit spirit and training. Such officers proudly impose catastrophe upon those serving under them. Paradoxically, men under them successfully inculcated with the same mentality may welcome such catastrophe as a chance to show their dedication. And so it was under blind obedience to a daimyo, a shogan, or emperor. Returning to an earlier thought: Valor, Fortitude, Bravery, Fearlessness, Courage, being the qualities of soul which appeal most easily to juvenile minds... While easily inculcated during the juvenile period, people, however useful under certain limited situations, who do not develop beyond that level remain juveniles who can not be given responsibility requiring caution, foresight, wisdom, or analytical thought. To the extent that the people over which they have command are rational or mature, dissatisfaction will be the consequence. This suggests a military principle that the temperament between commanding officers and men serving under them should be matched. For the above reasons, military officers who climb in rank primarily due to blind adherence to, or inculcation of, esprit de corps, should be looked upon suspiciously and most closely examined as to their ability to function in general grade or in advisory capacity requiring depth of consideration. Loyalty to higher man-authority was the end point of examination and behavior within Bushido without provision for, or encouragement of, other areas of importance. Man recognizes all diseases of the skin except his own. While there is a willingness to look at the condition of Japan with amusement or ridicule during certain of its various periods, there is disinclination or refusal to examine the arising of a daimyo class in America, or an inclination toward following various political parties, ideologies, or personalities with complete lack of introspection or examination that is more ludicrous and less excusable than anything having existed in Japan or elsewhere. I say less excusable because we take pride in having advanced in education and capacity for analysis. Additionally, access to history should administer lessons. But, as a practical matter there is a component within, or a proportion of, the human race that functions at childlike roles and levels of stupidity, and is immune to any obtained levels of formal education or forms of example or instruction and which is the most consistent and destructive plague afflicting human history. Consequently, conventionsof American political parties have the dignity and seriousness of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas staged by mentally defective children. The United States has had, and has, a grim assortment of people in high elected public office or other positions of power or authority who are of such low quality that they should not be tolerated or allowed anywhere in the adult world, but are nevertheless followed with a tenacious mindless loyalty or obedience that that could most closely be classified as voluntary hysteria. It is especially important for the novice analyst not to let adopted destructive hysteria become accepted as evidence of ideological righteousness, or to be seduced into such interpretation by propagandists. The actions of jihadist suicide bombers, for instance, are not to be accepted as a priori evidence of the righteousness of their cause so much as evidence of catastrophic gaps in phylogenetic evolutionary development compounded with a hideously warped sociological developmental environment. A second Bushido weakness was the glory attributed to the loss of one's own life. While the unconditional laying down of one's life for the emperor or whoever might be tolerable or glorious for those who are focused upon reincarnation or fanaticism, it carries with it the demotion of present life and circumstances to the point of intolerability to the questioning mind. Too much emphasis upon life-sacrifice at the present, no matter how doctored up with glittering abstract window dressing, can result in endless perpetuation of a drab present, even in conjuctured next earthly lives, that becomes an absurdity for those outside confinement of the circularity of reasoning underwriting it. In this context it should also definately be realized lords, leaders, or goverments should be expected to have no more respect for people and their lives than those people have for their own. To the extent people demand or tolerate no respect for themselves and/or their lives, if they find themselves being used as disposable appliances in pursuit of various ambitions of others, that is what they bargained for. In the pressent case of the American people, they have had self respect beaten out of them to the point where they have become submissive tools or powerless serfs to be used at will or impulse in servitude to various ambitions or ideologies at cost to themselves. A third Bushido weakness was implicitly brought up in the earlier paragraph: " When one is serving officially or in the master's court, he should not think of a hundred or a thousand people, but should consider only the importance of the master. Nor should he draw the line at his own life or anything else he considers valuable. Even if the master is being phlegmatic and one goes unrecognized, he should know that he will surely have the divine protection of the gods and Buddhas." It is unclear whether the second to last 'he' in the above sentence refers to the master, or to the one serving under him, or to both. In the real world the position of master conferrs nothing in the form of gifts from deities with the possible exception of overconfidence and/or arrogance. When all else is lain aside in importance to servitude of a master the creation of grandiose pathological self-centeredness in the master is facilitated --or often assured. It enables tyrants. A people that allows itself to become demoted to the position of being enablers suffers a fate parallel to a family that enables a member to engage in alcoholism. Furthermore, under conditions of human conflict, while blind belief in direction or protection by various divine entities alleviates fear, it is intrinsically impossible for such a deity to support both opposite mutually exclusive poles of disagreement or action simultaneously. Man, whether master or follower, is on his own. One's only protection is the development and accuracy of the master's, and/or one's own, mind. Blind belief in hypothetical protection or guidance has resulted in the destruction o many a nation or army. Making an ideology a deity doesn't change the above. The order of business here now becomes one of exploring what is the relevance of Bushido to the present, or should it be adopted? It becomes obvious that sympathy in all things, rectitude in justice and morality, courage, shame, benevolence, respect, honesty, honor, loyalty, preservation of ethics, respect for or piety to one's elders/parents, wisdom, cultivation of study or learning, sense of responsibility, and care for the aged are virtues. The lack of many of these has been responsible for the decline of society and decline in the state of government. Is Bushido in modernized form applicable or implementable in contemporary American society? The answer that I have come to after years of study is that, with certain serious modifications, it is the most perfect system I have found. Some weaknesses have already been discussed. When I say modifications, from psychoanalytic theory and experience, for instance, it becomes obvious that respect for one's elders/parents should be conditional. That is, there are instances of parents or elders so warped or abusive that respect for them would would be so unrealistic as to require sacrifice of mental health. Just as importantly, embracement of Asian mysticism can approach a dissociation from reality approaching schizophrenia. Elements such as Zen should be deemphasized and replaced with disciplines of the mind more directly connected to concrete reality contact. The emphasis in modern Bushido should be to free society and the individual from mental disorder, not to impose or perpetuate it. As far as implementation of Bushido, to begin with, the words of Toshikage should be taken seriously and rigorously applied: "In the fief of the Asakura, one should not determine hereditary chief retainers. A man should be assigned according to his ability and loyalty. One should not entrust a position and land to a man who has no talent, even if his family has held such for generations." The United States is plagued and corrupted with houses of elite wishfully-thoroughbred useless such as Bushs, Kennedys, Gores, Forbes-Kerrys, and others who have done little or naught with their lives beyond using and expanding inherited family position. They constitute a distinct identifiable social, economic, and political class. Coordinate with this is a highly entrenched American socioeconomic and political pattern which has become extensively developed. One family member by luck or accidental economic circumstance or even intelligent effort accomplishes an accumulation of wealth and power. Even in those family founders who obtain their condition through accomplishment, their descendents seldom dedicate themselves to, or continue, genuine effort of substance that produced the affluence and power. It isn't a necessity. While it is arguable that the children of wealth and power often receive educations from prestigious schools and prestigious social contants, making them theoretically highly suited for elevated positions it is also true that such people develop in an atmosphere insulated from direct real world productivity and within a world which cushions them against the absolute consequences of deficiency or irresponsibility. Thus, they lack acquisition of an adult sense of proportion or responsibility. Talent seems to be a recessive gene requiring environmental honing even when present. Money, position, and power are easily transmitted between generations, but serious substantial applied ability isn't. What typically occurs is offspring elevated into, and acclimated to, a comfortable subculture where the aquisition of superficial disciplines of congenial social graces and pleasing their social environment are more important than, and can be substituted for, the disciplines of reality. This substitution is protective of incapacity or disinclination to deal with real substance. There is a system of reward for descendent inherited name rather than serious descendent individual accomplishment. The result is loquacious groomed showpieces living off inheritance and over their head in anything requiring purpose, determination, or depth. The group task for such people is to avoid loss of comfortable income and position while coasting through life. Within the accumulated pool of inherited wealth and power occupied by the pool of such people, participation in this condition is not only economically viable, but highly rewarding. But still, there is a desperate class struggle by an overclass who should be demoted to outcasts, and relegated to the sidelines as effete fops in a rigorous truthful world, to prevent such from properly occurring. America is clogged with affluent parents weedling soft spots for their useless kids so as to avoid proper downward family mobility. The kids, in turn, will do the same for their useless kids. It's gone on for several generations in many cases, with useless cosmetically attractive kids being groomed and propped up until they can be inserted into, or fall into, a spot they can handle by parents who are also products of the same process. With the passage and hand-off between successive generations, it has become a settled way of life or profession which not only is unquestioned, but is a licensed aristocratic entitlement. Class group members are strongly dependent upon the same social/economic profession and in the business of defending it, and their own acceptability. The business or class struggle is fought as a group common element and networking. There is a commonality or brotherhood that is immediately recognized on the basis of family name and other elements making up a system of codependence which frequently develops between fraudulent weaklings as a group defense. A strong bond exists between mutually held group cushioned immaturity levels. There is a mutual desperately held claim to, or sense of, mutual social superiority. Group members find a quick compatability in that they operate from the same psychological condition and premises which remain unchallenged as long as they associate primarily with each other instead of the real outside world's raw evaluation. In telling themselves what they want to hear about themselves, they also tell each other what they want to hear from each other. People lying to themselves about what they are, are a comfortable support to others sharing the same lies. There is an unconcious realization that they are all riding on the same ship, and if the ship of aristocratic illusion goes down, they all go down. In this case the ship is a protective illusionary system upon which they mutually rely. The elitist developmental experience produces an entire class of people who have grown up uselessly soft in an enviroment without solid responsibility or effort for generations, but have a sense of entitlement and grandeur. It has evolved into a type of class struggle to maintain a delusional sense of integrity and worth which is played out on a political playground and display of superficial prestige. The result has been the development of a widespread system and network of certification requiring only superficialities. When there is an opening within business or governmental organization over which they have influence, class members look around to find a spot for one of their own. By consequence of hereditary wealth and position, along with social contacts, they do have influence. In 2003 a report fell into unsympathetic hands and became circulated on internet sites. As reported: Carlyle Group, the powerful investment house with close links to the Bush family, is facing acute embarrassment after the emergence of sardonic remarks the company founder, David Rubenstein, made about President Bush: "Somebody came to me and said: 'Look there is a guy who would like to be on the board (of directors). He's kind of down on his luck a bit. Needs a job. Could you put him on the board? Pay him a salary and he'll be a good board member and be a loyal vote for the management and so forth,'" he said in a speech to a Los Angeles pension fund. Of Mr Bush's performance, he added: "He came to all the meetings. Told a lot of jokes. Not that many clean ones. And after a while I said to him, after about three years: 'You know, I'm not sure this is really for you because I don't think you're adding that much value. You don't know that much about the company.'" In a talk to investors, Rubenstein said George W Bush did little but tell dirty jokes while on the board of a company owned by Carlyle, and that he wouldn't have appeared in the top 25 million people he would have suggested for president of the US. To ward off the heat generated by the comments Carlyle later characterised the comments as "tongue in cheek". A spokesman said: "Carlyle was very happy to have Mr Bush on the board and he left to run for governor of Texas." without disputing the substance or seriousness of Rubenstein's comments or the possibility that Rubenstein was finally voicing a long held back legitimate disgust. Were the average person to walk into a bank, declare he had no money, prospects, or experience, then ask to be put on the bank's board of directors at $80,000 a year since he was down on his luck, he would be ushered out the door in short order. But when your name is Bush, your granddaddy was senator from Connecticut, your Father is Vice President or president, "somebody," people in the class structure will work to find a soft spot for you. In Bush's case he was rescued from virtual backruptcy and from a slide into lower-class obscurity by being given a series of such positions until the class structure could install him as governor and eventually president on the basis of family name and class group membership. From the standpoint of outside objective reality, there was no basis in experience or qualifications other than the name Bush, and class union membership, to put him into office as anything --either in business or government. The Bush case is illustrative of principle, not exhaustive. Close examanation of many high level people in politics/goverment reveals a similar path which has a death grip on the American political/administrative system and which often does not incorporate serious employment or evidence of ability along the line. Al Gore is basically an unemployable ludicrous figure saved by inheritance of the Gore family name and state power structure. The same is true of any Kennedy. The list of such people reveals they have no personal investment in anything other than a diamyo class power system and political power mediated by a vacuous loquaciousness that could be found in any high school debate team along with equivalent high school experience and other qualifications. While there may be some jostling between class members for specific positions, as long as the contests are primarily restricted to being among class members, the class system dominence is protected and perpetuated. Part of this class struggle begins with a justifying deserving frame of reference that when one family member earned, they all have earned, generating an implicitly held conception of perpetual gratitude and compensation owed to the family line by society. Society therefore owes the kids for what their grandfathers did. Secondarily, there flows a feeling of entitlement on the basis of such debt and also a position of civilized social superiority. Entitlement is a dangerous condition in anyone. When someone feels entitled to something they don't believe they must earn or merit to obtain it. If they don't get it they believe they have been cheated out of it. If they obtain it by deceptive or crooked ways, it is not looked upon as unethical because it's owed to them anyway as a right or debt payment. Anything interfering with receipt of that right is an injustice that justifies or licenses corrupt retaliation or methods in return. Stealing or acquisition by deception of what properly belongs to you, or whatyou subjectively believe has been taken from you, or is owed to you, is not stealing, but only reclaimition. Entitlement thus negotiates discarding of conscience --but not discarding of indiganation over not getting one's way or not having the world conform to one's subjective view of reality or entitlement. Constent aggressive war against, or rejection of, the values or prerequisites of the realistic outside world becomes a subjectively licensed form of theft prevention. The secondary consequence of feeling of entitlement, or of tolerating/encouraging entitlement, is a monument to aggressive dangerous self-righteous psychopathology. Economically leveraged prestige management is a self-protective tool employed to prevent such individuals or groups from descending downward into lower or insignificant levels of the social and economic ladder where their capacities, depth, seriousness, and productivity should correctly place them. That is, trophies such as political offices or titles that can be acquired through social ingratiation and inherited name recognition rather than talent and effort are acquired to place upon the mantlepiece to maintain family name recognition, prestige, and power. The perfect road is politics. Politics is a world where substanceless polish that class members were raised in is sufficient and serves them well. Combine that with class financial support plus class networking support, plus a dab of education purchased at he right colleges, plus the fact that the Americam public, and its media visibility gatekeepers, who themselves constitute a diamyo class occupying TV and journalistic fiefs, employ the same depth of judgment in selecting political candidates as they do in selecting TV channels or personalities --and the result is an effete political powerhouse dedicated to perpetuating diamyo class advantage and position. Elite class political ladder-climbers melodramatically invoke a family tradition of the nobility and the sacrifice of public service. There is no sacrifice. It's a factual reality that nobody ever went hungry while being a United States Senator and being treated as a god. Without the throne of that position, inhabitants might find themselves faced with the rude prospect of finding real concrete productive employment elsewhere for which they are by temperament and talent unsuited. The supposed sacrifice of entering high level public service has never had any shortage of applicants for good reason. Politics is used as a prestigious playground where pretentious mindless honkeys honk back and forth like geese or trained seals in verbal pop shots at each other in pretense of differences and activity. Enough background to enable honking with impressive verbal fluency is qualification to enter the business. It's a elitist game of substanceless pretense played before ignorant lower class suckers which has the ego-stroking effect of ridiculing the suckers while demonstrating class superiority. If the suckers are taken in, it proves the suckers are incompetent enough that they need the leadership of the people who are conning them. That the ridiculing mindlessness used to con the suckers is the upper limit of intelligence and analytical level of the leadership conning them is not a consideration. Neither is the consequent destruction resulting from installation of people of that caliber. To some extent the confidence men running for office have justifiable reason to have contempt for the stupidity of the people tolerating or voting for them. If they obtain some satisfaction from treating to people with some contempt by dumping a double dose of demogogery upon voters, further polluting the system, and repelling people of integrity and conscience from entering it, so be it. Officeholders playing this game develop a defensive bond between each other in response to being under disgusting prostitutional siege from the outside system they reinforce and upon which they are dependent. Father Bush's presidential library bestowed Teddy Kennedy an award for his many years of public service to the accompaniment of speeches by Bush glorifying Kennedy --as if Mr. Kennedy has ever been anything but an unemployable marauding drunk dependent upon public service for enployment in life. In Massachusetts, countercultural degeneracy and treason have become a State Sport the same way as bullfighting or soccer are in Mexico with proud celebration of the condition expressed by election of egregious exponents into national public office. All manner of Bushs conduct voluntary close social relationships with Bill Clinton --the man who highlighted his presidency by being down on his hands and knees in the Oval Office getting oral-anal sexual stimulation from a White House intern as part of an expression of a persistent life pattern and value system. Barbara Bush is on record as looking at Clinton as an adopted son. The point is, there is nothing within the Bush family value system such that the conduct o characteristics of such people is prohibitively offensive to any associations with them and they are to be shunned. There is an absence of healthy shame or embarrassment in such associations which sets an unfortunate national model of acceptability. The Bush family is morally and ethically incompetent and nonfunctional. There are people in this world completely objectionable, unacceptable, and unfit for personal association by other people who have any class. Among people with character and integrity, people such as the Clintons and Kennedys are treated as disgusting outcasts. Only people at the same level of trashiness adopt them as friends or associates. In the case of the Bushs, what exists is effete trash with refined table manners who associate with trash of their own level. The practical moral, ethical, and even intellectual choice between a Bush and a Clinton or Kennedy is nonexistent. Regardless of who is chosen, the basic value system, or lack-of-values system, is protected. A classless society, that is a society inhabited by people without any class or character or substance, is enabled. In recent weeks there has been a supposed scandal over U. S. Representative Mark Foley's alleged homosexual pursuit of capital pages. Democratic honkeys are now attempting to present the situation as a Republican phenomenon. Is Foley any more deplorable than a Democrat U. S. Senator who drives a woman off a bridge, then leaves her there to assemble public relations and lawyer teams while affecting a hokey neck brace that nobody has seen before or since to feign injury? Is Foley that much different than a Democratic presidential aspirant who has state troopers bring a woman into his hotel room so he can stick his penis in her face and demand she kiss it? Is Foley different from an openly gay congressman whose sex partner ran a male gay prostitute operation from the congressman's home? It is not a Republican or Democrat problem, but a problem of degenerate swill and trashiness that runs across party lines. In the present case Democrats, with a cooperative media determined to keep the issue alive and make it stick, are taking advantage of the situation to poke mocking jibes at the Republicans to affect a pretense of moral/ethical issue or difference which does not exist. There is also more to morality or ethics than sexual matters. As a church minister wisecracked, the commission of sin is more than a matter of asking, "Oh yeah? Who'd you do it with?" How demogogic and psychopatic is a presidential aspirant who shamelessly claimed President Nixon sent him into Cambodia when Nixon wasn't even president on the date given? How moral, ethical, or intelligent is a political party, and a media, which enthusiastically gives him a pass on this and a series of similar claims or actions because it maintains their vindictive countercultural agenda? Is that not as serious a disgrace and insult as a homosexual congressman chasing capital hill pages? Which is a greater threat or insult to the republic, a gay congressman chasing boys, or not culling out blatently dishonest self-entitled psychopaths from pursuing the presidency who show disrespect for anything but their own ambition? None of this is meant to obscure or minimalize Foley's unsuitability or lack of sense of mature proportin, or lack of sense of priorities. It is meant to clearly state, both political parties contribute to a grotesque atmosphere and complete absence of quality control which facilitates acts that would be unthinkable in a mature respectful rational or moral society. For any of his defects, Foley did at least have enough capacity for embarrassment to resign his position. Evidence of freedom of the press has been to staff written media and TV discussions with self-infatuated 15 year old level mentalities to the point of displacing representation of the responsible adult world. Asking for intelligent adulthood is indignantly and dramatically interpreted as an assault upon freedom of the press. Responsible journalism is expected to have an adversarial relationship with mistruth. What has instead developed is an arrogant and defiant adversarial relationship to responsible adulthood. In terms of maturity, in terms of serious studiousness, in terms of honor, in terms of respect, in terms of conscience or shame, the level is far below Samurai or Bushido standards. Mannerly blandness is a defense against appropriate personal or family embarrassment or realistic evaluation. That is, there is a condition of overly pleasant urbane blandness under which the underlying corruption is unmentionable --and hence protected. The act of being higly civilized is sometimes more precisely truth avoidance. In this instance the truth to be avoided is the existence of a condition of cheating or coasting through life. In an atomospere of refined manners you don't speak of unpleasant subjects at the dinner table. In polite society you don't disturb the artificial atmosphere of unconditional pleasant cordiality with the truth. In politics it's called taking the high road. The result is to protect the disgraceful from disgrace. For the first time since she and her husband left the White House on Jan. 20, 1993, in an interview with Sean Hannity, former first lady Barbara Bush explained why they never spoke ill of their successors, Bill and Hillary Clinton. Asked why she and President Bush 41 never criticized the Arkansas couple during their eight years in the White House, Mrs. Bush told radio host Sean Hannity, "We took a vow we would not speak badly." Speak badly? What's that mean? The Bushs live in a mannerly world of blandness that separates them from reality and adult responsibilities. They hide behind a pathological paraChristian protective defense that avoids confrontatioal discomfort with the basic truth applied not only to the laxity in their own lives, but also to lives of others. It incorporates an unnecessity to face duties and obligations characteristic of the honorable adult world. Is there a need for, or a duty to, adult corrective influence of aggressive defiant degenerate madness? Not in the Bush heirachy of priorities. Within their frame of reference, commitment to congenial good manners and unconditional pleasantness outweighs more important moral commitment to the state and continued existance of the country, because that is the limit of their mental capability and development. The unkindness and disservice to decent American people being subjected to, and insulted by, the corrupt train of events with which they are required to live s of no concern. Those among the ordinary people required to endure insult and corruption, and who openly complain about it, are considered intrusive unmannerly barbarians who speak badly. The reality is that the Bushs, with their pleasant nonjudgmental congeniality, were, and are, practicing implicit conferring of license to defiant psychopaths. Bush supporters say that the good natured silence and congeniality represent class. It's not class, but irresponsible facilitation of all manner of insult and evil. In the mature healthy adult world there are actions or conditions or insults that, as a matter of social responsibility, are not to be tolerated with congenial agreeability . Responsible Adulthood requires occasional discomfort. As part of adulthood there are people who merit and need to be offended or shamed or shunned as well as excluded as part of adult duty to society. Christianity teaches to Judge not, lest ye be judged. Modern Bushido teaches: 1) judge not and ye shall be delivered by thyself unto con men and misanthropes, and deliver others also. 2) Conduct your life in such a way that being judged will not be a threat to you. Any man who lives in fear of reasonable judgements applied to himself will be immobilized in making necessary rational judgements about the world around him. There are times when not speaking badly makes as much sense as not calling the fire department when the house is burning down in a mannerly desire not to bring up unpleasant subjects, or disturb the atmosphere of bland unreactive unconditional pleasantness. The effete control/survival pattern correlates with, or is made possible, by changes in the economic system which have brought an enormous influx of artificialities. From, or through the colonial period into the early 20th century, the nation was predominently rural with a highly direct economy isolated from any greater system. That is, people had farms or small enterprises and if they didn't til the fields or the equivalent directly, they would starve. This determined the predominent ethos of the period. The vote was irrelevant to the plow. Theoretical money-based economic systems were inoperative and irrelevant. Were someone to come to a farmer 110 years ago and expect to take 25% of his crops for various purposes, or expect to freeload off his crops, that someone would have been shot. Physical reality dictated that there was a duty to work productively. Since the dominence of the urban money-mediated economy, it has become increasingly possible for parasites to worm their way into positions where they can skim off, or inject themselves into, the pool of money circulation while contributing naught. This is facilitated by the power of government. George Bush can further intercept the pool of money circulation using government office to portray himself as a fountain of compassionate idealistic magnamanous generosity by declaring America has a duty to share "our" wealth with the rest of the world without ever having held a serious job in his life. The process is rendered vague and mystical through the intermediary monetary and taxation system. The declaration presupposes arbitrary group possession, ownership, or diposibility of any economic activity occurring within drawn geographical boundaries. It also presupposes disrespect for the efforts and the rights of citizens to existence separate from any group that demands claim upon them. Claims of all kinds, monetary and otherwise, have escalated and tightened in recent decades. Spoiled parasites in the political ascendency assume license to march into lives of other people living within the boundaries of their titular authority and confiscate or redistribute what those other people took years of effort to build with the disrespect and disregard absolute feudal rulers have over serfs. It ultimately means arbitrary posession of a people regimented into being owned and manipulated by a political authoritarianism. The philosophy is eagerly accepted by others who are, or wish to be, skimmers in one form or another whether on the national or international stage. Generosity and political power/prestige have become the siezure and giving away of productivity by a class of peope who have had no real role in production or other investment in the country. It has facilitated a conflict managerial class that organizes and then represents various sides of conflicts for purposes of procuring their own power and advantage. The promotion and management of conflict ends up assuming power over both sides. A prevalent method of obtaining power or imposing submission is to devise a system of verbal theatrics that avoids specific realities while shifting the reference to glittering or intimidating verbal abstraction. Typically the reference is to self-assignment of superior position or to fake cause/crusade enabling doing things for bogus reasons and under false authority. When backed up by armies or police, illegitimate authority or fake crusade becomes realized. The term realized is used here not in the customary sense of coming into conscious awareness, but in the sense of becoming a part of the real physical environment as a fact one must contend with. When confronted, the demogogue puffs up like a toad to decree to be acting on a mandate representing the people who elected him. Legitimate disrespect or insult toward him or his title is dramatically interpreted as an intolerable denial of representation of the people who elected him. When challenged, the corrupt or subversive judge postures back in melodamatic indignation to declare the challenge to be an assault upon the rule of law. The result of the verbal trickery is the obtaining of the authority to march into people lives. What is being demanded by an authoritarian elitist element is intrusion and authority to the point of ownership of people's lives to the point of arbitrarily conscripting them into rightless servitude to their ambitions and kook schemes or ideologies. There is no defense or appeal within the system because such must be processed through those demanding servitude and obedience. There is such a thing known as a God complex. Many people have it. They become intrigued with the prospect of setting themselves up as all-powerful gods in positional authority. Ideological systems and self-serving frames of reference also develop God complexes representng the would-be gods that created them --or can be employed to enable god complexes in individuals. Life, particularly political life, is a series of attempted coups, wherein people attempt to impose and enforce their ambitions, psychopathologies, frauds, or whatever upon other people. If they have the means, such as police or armies, at their disposal to do it, the coup becomes successful, doctored up by rhetoric and the window dressing of a twisted facade of legal framework. They take control of your life. It's little different than the coups that periodically occur in fourth rate bananna republics. The coup is successful and bloodless if not contested, or if those contesting it can be kept scattered and/or immobilized and powerless. If contested, those who object to it can be rounded up piecemeal under some pretext providing they are incohesively ungrouped. Beyond that, people who object can be killed. Waco was a successful demonstrational test case for lethal rogue authoritarianism. The United States exists under a condition of continuous attempted incremental coup in struggles to overthrow its constitution and concepts of liberty to suit various ambitions, to support various diamyo classes, or to impose various types of politically manipulatable neurotic or psychotic systems of social authoritarianism. The new social authoritarianism is an irrational eternal juvenile Freudian Id-based ideology wherein people are to be guaranteed the enticing prospect of personal social acceptance and personal economic receipt, regardless of personal behavior or destructive personal licentiousness at cost to others or to themselves. The response to this disrespect and insult, by those still able to identify it, is to be a docility that is not possible in a healthy society. What is to be promoted is a society of worn down and sickened people managed by force of law, by force of propaganda, or by other method into a blunted zombie-like incapacity for appropriate assertion/aggression and into instilled suggestible nearly hysterical social conformity or dependence. It is to be a society of people pathologically suggestible and compliant to their own detriment --in short a society which can be subjected to rule by a type of sadism which in recent years has become political correctness. The principles of Bushido: Rectitude in justice and morality, conscience/shame, empathy, courage, benevolence, respect, honesty, honor, loyalty, preservation of ethics, wisdom, care for the aged, and continued study of all things with review/examination of one's life make up that which constitutes true class. To those, I would add an element of serious honest productivity. These are elements that are timeless in the development and state of individual human character. They are also timeless truths in a mature healthy society. The absence of the above, combined with what can only be described as a condition of perpetual self-centered adolescent immaturity, describe what has gone wrong with this country. The concept of loyalty here must be sharply defined and qualified. Let no man be unconditionally loyal to another, or to any organization. In modern Bushido loyalty to higher man-authority must be absolutely conditional. Let no man be loyal to that which is unearned or undeserving. In the spirit of Mencious one's only loyalty should be to that rational set of principles defining class. To the extent any individual represents and exemplifies those principles he may be endorsed or followed. To the extent any individual fails to represent those principles he is to be repudiated. There is a rule that should be inculcated in children as they are growing up, and practiced by adults. The standard and message to be applied to others in one's life should be: Do not betray or disgrace yourself. Do not betray me. If you do, I will repudiate you. That rule applies to the acquisition or keeping of friends, to political figures, to coworkers, and all else. In their own lives children should be taught not to betray themselves nor betray the principles of Bushido. By unfortunate act of nature, not all people are capable of class. It is the task of the practitionor of modern Bushido and the modern Samurai to exercise influence upon those who can be influenced, and upon society, through example, criticism and teaching. The modern Samurai must build and identify with a Bushido class structure in America. That class must favor its own in all things and attempt to exclude that, and those, contrary to the code of modern Bushido.
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#1. To: christine (#0)
Excellent article bump
In "A Town Like Alice", the WWII drama (based on the book by Nevil Shute )the Aussie hero is saved from death because of bushido. The Japanese officer was unable to honor his offer of a last request to the Aussie. His last request was for one of the chickens he had just stolen and a cold beer, so he was saved. Otherwise, the officer would have lost face. This novel is loosely based on the stories of real people the author met post WWII. "The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer." |
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