武士道の分析 (an Analysis of Bushido)

Discourses of Bushido are largely strategic constructions, each molding a version of Japanese masculine identity to address a specific problem in Japan’s relationship to modernity and national unity. This reinvention of the man is inconsistent enough across writers to help show Japanese male identity’s constructed nature.

The prominence of the idealized man revolves around the relation between the male body and the constructed image of Japan. Mason finds that these writers share a “strategic use of ‘femininity’,” (Mason, 2011, p. 70) to define their versions of masculinity and the nation. This phenomenon can be seen here where Mason says, “bushidō is a premise that assumes a symbiotic relationship between individual and national bodies” (Mason, 2011, p. 68). Bushido’s idealization of masculine identity is a strategic move but in actuality as Mason put it, “no less stable or authentic than any other trope of masculinity” (Mason, 2011, p. 71). The strategy allows the Japanese man to be idealized in behavior and appearance, so Japan can project itself as a modern, powerful nation. For example, Nitobe strategically used “feminine” and “childlike” traits to draw parallels between Bushido and Christian love, attempting to show Japan as “civilized” to a Western audience (Mason, 2011, p. 76).

In contrast, Mishima Yukio repurposed the feminine practice of using a mirror to combat postwar “emasculation”. For Mishima, the mirror is not for beauty but for inspecting a man’s commitment to death, what Mason calls “material for introspection” (Mason, 2011, p. 80). The mirror allows the man to hold power even though he seemingly participates in feminine tropes. It recontextualizes a cultural stereotype, the mirror being an object of feminine association, to a launching point for a fuller realization of Samurai values. With this, Japanese identity can square up to the west. By shifting the image of a mirror, Mishima collapses existing stereotypical imagery into something respectable even from a western gaze. This counters Western rhetoric that depicted Japanese as “loose in morals,” (Mason, 2011, p. 72) or “childish” (Mason, 2011, p. 72) because these introspective men are guided by a rigid, and unified discipline.

This difference in focus helps us find the true goal between these narratives. They provide different lenses for how Japan should be characterized by the west. Nitobe’s background living in the west and becoming a Quaker helps inform his view of how Christianity deeply propagates through western gaze. Thus, we see him focusing on the moral quality of the Japanese man. Through this, Japan will be regarded more seriously from the west because Japan is on par with their moral quality. And Mishima views Japan through the lens of postwar emasculation. So he synthesizes Bushido as a means to unite the country in a common cause: sacrificial readiness. A solid core of men willing to expend themselves for their state gives Japan a sense of masculine power and national pride.

These different interpretations of the man in modernity help show the constructed nature of Bushido. The supposed deep and consistent propagation doesn’t quite line up between writers. From this, we can see Bushido, and by extension Japanese male identity, as a fabricated tool leveraged to put Japan in a position of relevance to the west.