Shinto or Bushido? Moral Discourse in Prewar Japan

• In Event: What Isn't Shinto?

Abstract

In 1912, Basil Hall Chamberlain scathingly pointed out the very recent invention of what he called a “cult” in Japan – “the new Japanese religion of loyalty and patriotism” – of which the new Shinto and bushido were integral parts. In many ways, Japan’s modern Shinto and its equally modern “Way of the Samurai” or bushido fulfilled similar roles in creating the new national morality. As some scholars have suggested, Shinto was more or less religious and bushido explicitly secular; in other formulations, Shinto was secular while bushido was aligned with Christianity or, after 1900, Buddhism. In any case, Shinto and bushido imagery and ideas, while overlapping, were used by distinct groups of people, rarely mixing in public statements. By the 1937 issuing of the Fundamentals of our National Polity (Kokutai no Hongi), however, Shinto or kami rhetoric became to some extent commingled with references to bushido, with both identified as forming the fundamental character of both the Japanese people and the nation.

What was the relationship between Shinto and bushido in prewar Japan? What distinguished the two at different times? To what extent did they merge or remain separate over time? This paper explores published expressions of public morality – in newspapers, articles, lectures, and books – to clarify the boundary between Shinto and bushido in the first half of the twentieth century.

Author

• Sarah Thal, University of Wisconsin-Madison