The Myth Of Bushido

Author: Bret Gordon

​Walk into any modern dojo and you’re likely to see the word Bushido 武士道, often written in elegant calligraphy, framed on the wall, symbolizing honor, loyalty, and discipline. In the minds of many martial artists, Bushido is the pure essence of what it means to live the warrior life with virtue. But this idealization masks a darker, far more complex truth. Far from being the innate spirit of the Samurai, Bushido was a late and calculated attempt to moralize a class of men who had, for centuries, lived by the sword with little regard for ethics. They were not born with a code, they had one imposed upon them when their swords became less necessary. To understand Bushido, we must first understand what it was reacting to.
 
The early Samurai were not moral paragons. They were military men, enforcers of clan rule, hired blades in the constant feudal wars that defined Japan from the 12th to the 16th centuries. From the Kamakura through the Sengoku period, Japan was a blood-soaked battleground, and the Samurai were its most effective killers. They raped. They pillaged. They burned. The right of the victor included not only taking heads in battle, but seizing land, food, livestock, and women. And we won’t even talk about the practice of wakashudo…

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