are there any still practicing the art of the Samurai?

[disgruntled]

i bought and read the book Hagakure (the book of the samurai) and i got to say that it is kinda good that no one still practices it. the book was about how the samurai should do everything for their master without question. in fact they were discouraged from learning things, being able to read, and vertially any form of independent thought. they were trained to be non-thinking killing machines that are so disaplined that they will take their own life on command without question.

in a sense you could say that the idea of the samurai will never go away. a lot of the techniques are still used today in the millitary for the same reasons. you cannot have guys that will worry about their life and question a command because that will cost the unit. and they do have to put the group loyalty above all.... thank god we have grow past not allowing them to be educated (now we just target the uneducated sadly).

[sirdarksol]

Originally Posted by disgruntled

i bought and read the book Hagakure (the book of the samurai) and i got to say that it is kinda good that no one still practices it. the book was about how the samurai should do everything for their master without question. in fact they were discouraged from learning things, being able to read, and vertially any form of independent thought. they were trained to be non-thinking killing machines that are so disaplined that they will take their own life on command without question.
.

You must have a different translation of the Hagakure than I have. While, on the surface, my copy does have the concept of total obedience, it subtly suggests that there are times where one's lord's needs would be better met with disobedience.
Samurai were encouraged to learn to read (in fact, it was a requirement in many families, as the samurai had to keep control of a large plot of land, not just its military aspects, but income and care for the peasants). The version I have actually laments that so many young samurai of the era were uneducated. (Possibly a very easy mistake to make in translation, either way. There are a lot of concepts in Japanese that are not easily interpreted into English)

[disgruntled]

interesting.... the way that i interpreted it is that the higher class like the shogun and such were to be well educated, but not the mass army.... but maybe i should re-read the passages i was thinking of. the other thing that i thought was that the "education" that was desireable for them is the route kind or the fact based, not the critical thinking type that would encourage questioning of authority and such.

like i said i have to re-read it, but part of what makes me think that he desires to keep the mass soilders ignorant is a passage in the book where he tells the reader that they are not to keep the book. it is to be given away or burnt up. i found that suspicious.

i will try to look up the passages i am refering to. yay homework!

[sirdarksol]

Originally Posted by disgruntled

interesting.... the way that i interpreted it is that the higher class like the shogun and such were to be well educated, but not the mass army.... but maybe i should re-read the passages i was thinking of. the other thing that i thought was that the "education" that was desireable for them is the route kind or the fact based, not the critical thinking type that would encourage questioning of authority and such.

like i said i have to re-read it, but part of what makes me think that he desires to keep the mass soilders ignorant is a passage in the book where he tells the reader that they are not to keep the book. it is to be given away or burnt up. i found that suspicious.

i will try to look up the passages i am refering to. yay homework!

Ah, I see where the issue is. It's in terminology.
You are correct, the mass soldiers were pretty ignorant, because they were, for the most part, conscripted soldiers similar to the conscripts of Western warfare. These soldiers were called the ashigaru.
The samurai were similar to the Western classes of Knights, Barons, Counts, etc... Aside from being the elite soldiers and commanders in warfare, they ran the day-to-day business of the various estates on their daimyo's province.
The daimyo would be the equivalent of a king. He ruled a large area of land, and would often fight the other daimyos for resources or more territory.
The shogun (once the position was created) was the ruling daimyo. This position unified a once-wartorn land.
The emperor is the equivalent of a Western emperor, controlling many diverse kingdoms or provinces. The emperor was the only person with direct control over the shogun, and this was due to the belief that the emperor was a direct descendant of Amaterasu, the Goddess of the Sun.
Everybody samurai and above would generally need to be learned in the art of writing in order to effectively run their territory, as well as to maintain a certain level of noble culture (samurai were renowned for their artwork, including poetry).
Also, and I hadn't thought about this before, the Hagakure itself is a work written by a samurai who is lamenting the decay of the samurai class, and offering advice on how to fix it.

All of these relations are not quite correct, but the closest that I can get them. There are major ideological differences between the way the medieval Japanese thought and the way the medieval Europeans thought.

I forgot to say earlier that I agree that there are concepts that are best left in the past, but it is also good to remember that the society, culture, and religion that they come from was vastly different than our culture is today, and yet not so different than our culture at about the same time period.

[disgruntled]

oh that makes so much more sense. that clears up everything. especially because while i was reading it i thought that it did not make sense. because after reading books like shogun and such, i thought that the role of a samurai was more extensive and would need more intellect.

[sirdarling]

I feel that it is important not to read direct translations at first, I know that with a guided translation your view gets skewed a little with the author's interpretations, but what SirDarkSol has said about the differences is true. To a samurai of Tsunetomo Yamamoto's standing, there are no samurai who would be considered a grunt, as SirDarkSol stated, that was where the ashigaru came in.

The words that you referenced earlier, to burn the book after he had written it... was referenced earlier in the foreward. Tsunetomo did not believe that the world was ready for the statements that he was making; hagakure was a collection of tales that Tsuramoto Tashiro, a younger member of his clan wrote down. Tsunetomo somehow knew that the very thing that would make Japan stronger would be of no good to the current society.

Again to reference a previous question of yours, a retainer of a lord was required to obey his lord to his death. It is very true that at that time it was somewhat of a requirement, a retainer sometimes protested his lord's decision with seppuku, proving with his life how ardently he felt about a decision being right or wrong... but there are many historical references of a samurai disagreeing with their lord, just in a different way than we would now.

But Hagakure was more of an admonishment of how bad society was percieved by Tsunetomo than what samurai life was like at that time. It is an extreme, rather than an average of what it was like to be one at that time.

[DOCBROWN1705]

Just to Clarify from the start of the thread..... Samurai is not a martial arts form. The Samurai, were the Noble Military Class in Japans Pre-industrial Period. The word samurai itself, basically means " To Serve".

The Shogun was a military rank, that would be equivalent to a general in an American army. It was most commonly used in the 11th century (during Japans first major feudal period).

Samurai philosophy is based primarily in Buddhism, and zen, and to a lesser extent Shinto, and Confucianism. The Samurai lived in a time of great blood shed, and brutal dictatorship . Amongst all the chaos they managed to follow what became known as the Bushido (The way of the warrior") it was a code of conduct that was adopted by almost all Japaneses martial arts systems.

The samurai were masters of many fighting techniques, however they are most notable recognized by there Katanas. The Bushido taught that the Katana was an extension of the Samurai's soul.....

Samurai as a culture, and as a military presence is no longer practiced, however there Bushido, and many of the Martial arts forms they used are. (Kendo, Akido, kyujutsu, among others.)

[disgruntled]

Originally Posted by sirdarling

I feel that it is...

very good info! thanks for clearing that up! +rep for you and Doc's post that was also very good!

[Koutaishi]

Originally Posted by Tonic

Yeah for sure, its still practiced in asian countries and even if you looked around where you live there is probably someone teaching it from a back shed somewhere.

It really could only be fully practiced in Japan (or more accurately, by the Japanese), as the very concept of Bushido was centered around a loyalty to the very country of Japan and to Shinto, a religion that, by its own beliefs, you can only be born into. You must be among the indirect descendants of the gods and goddesses in order to honor your familial ties to them.

That being said, I am sure that there are plenty of people who practice something very close to Bushido here and there around the globe.

[disgruntled]

although shintoism is based around the belief that people are decendent of god and so forth, and you must be loyal to Japan.... i do not think that these beliefs cannot be translated to another culture. granted something will be lost, as with all translations, but i think the aspects you listed are more superficial.