Sarah Paine

It's a whole literature.

And it was written in the Tokugawa period, which quite ironically was a period known for peace, not warfare.

Nevermind.

And what's interesting about this literature from a Western perspective, it's really not about military strategy.

It's about deportment.

It's how a samurai should conduct himself.

And this reflects Japanese values and what the things that they emphasize.

And so I'm gonna go through it with you.

Here's the game plan on the theorists.

First, I'm gonna talk about the philosophical origins of Bushido, then the values that underpin it, and then the operational preferences that grow out of it.

That's the game plan for first half.

And I'm going to use as my cultural bridge this man, Nitobe Inazo, who wrote a book much later in 1900, Bushido's Soul of Japan, Why Am I Doing This?

He provides a concise definition of Bushido.

And you can see he's an important figure in Japan.

Not everybody gets their mug on the 5,000 yen note.

So he's an important figure in Japan.

He had spent 18 years abroad.

and he received higher education in Japan and a variety of Western institutions.

He married—believe it or not, I don't make up these things—a Philadelphia Quaker, and he converted to Christianity, and he spent his life trying to serve as a cultural bridge, and that's how I'm going to use him today.

And what he said is, unlike in the West,