The Tradition:
For centuries, the samurai and their spiritual descendants followed "the way of the warrior," living lives governed by its tenets of honor, strict devotion to one's master and, above all, self sacrifice. This ancient tradition helped make World War II a hell of a lot scarier, since, according to the Internet, "Kamikaze pilots used the samurai and their code for inspiration ... Just like the samurai, kamikaze pilots had no fear of death, and were honorable men that were loyal to their country."
How Old It Actually Is:
The idea that samurai are either loyal to their country or eager to die in battle is approximately as old as Walt Disney. Bushido as a coherent ideology only dates back to 1905.
Who Made It Up?
The whole thing started with an honest, if retarded mistake by a historian named Nitobe Inazo, who based his 1905 book Bushido: The Spirit of Japan on rules written for samurai. This is the equivalent of reading a high school handbook and determining that teenagers live by a strict code of attending class, and turning weed dealers in to the cops.
According to Karl Firday, professor of history at the University of Georgia and author of a bunch of really smart books on Japan, aside from laws that they were told to follow, the history of the samurai is notable for a complete lack of evidence that they were any more happy to die in battle and even a little bit loyal. It's entirely possible that a warrior sacrificing his life was seen as noble, but that's no different than the European code of chivalry which also made room for honorable suicide. In fact, the evidence paints a picture of samurai that looks more like a modern professional athlete than what we see in our martial arts films. They'd fight and kill for you as long as the money was right. When it wasn't, they'd switch sides, and slice the word "for" clean out of the previous sentence.
So if Japan was one big game of "fuck your buddy with a sword" and Europe was the land of the noble warrior falling on his, how did a bunch of Japanese pilots find themselves swan diving at air craft carriers while saying prayers to the medieval equivalent of Terrell Owens?
As it turns out, our modern concept of Bushido developed as a method of social control. The Emperor and the Imperial Army and Navy wanted something that would boost their men's fighting spirit. When Nitobe Inazo sucked at his job badly enough to write that "the way of the warrior is to die," they all just sort of nodded and said, "Yep, that's the way of the warrior alright!"
Psyche!
Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_18510_6-supposedly-ancient-traditions-that-totally-arent.html#ixzz1FLtpWB2l
