"It is essential that the hero be prepared for this sublime end so that when the moment comes he will know precisely how to act and not be swayed by his instinct for survival or other human weakness. His final, blazing meeting with his fate is the most important event of his life. To continue fighting against all odds and to acquit himself properly at the end will give validity to his previous efforts and sacrifices; to die badly will make a mockery of everything that has lent meaning to his existence. 'Think constantly of your death!' were the last words that the loyalist hero, Masahige, is said to have spoken to his son before committing harakiri in 1336..."
The notion that one must die well is not confined to the Japanese. Montaigne once wrote that "all the other actions of our life ought to be tried and tested by this last act. It is the master-day, it is the day that is judge of all the rest..." But no country on earth has absorbed this notion so deeply as Japan, whose obsession with the art of dying has become as familiar as the words harakiri and kamikaze. And while Montaigne imbues death with a life-affirming humanism, seeing in it an opportunity to "speak plain" and to show what is "good and clean in the bottom of the pot," the traditional Japanese concept of death, with its perverse focus on suicide, can be so impassioned that it verges on religious ecstasy. As Morris writes: "Hagakure, the most influential of all samurai treatises ever written, combines the characters for 'dying' (shini) and 'going mad' (kurui) into a single word, shinigurui ('death frenzy'), and enjoins this ardent state on the warrior; for he cannot hope to accomplish any great deed until he has first 'surmounted himself' by discarding the cautious dictates of reason and self-interest."
Death, the ultimate failure, is the focus of Morris's book. He recounts the tales of nine of Japan's greatest heroes, each of which is used as a lens to view historical periods stretching from the fourth century to the nineteenth. (There is also a final chapter discussing kamikaze pilots, who drew much of their inspiration from these legendary figures.) Their stories are strikingly similar: they experienced a meteoric rise in fame and influence before dying a glorious death in the face of certain defeat, which invariably came at the hands of those in positions of power. Furthermore, whatever agendas these heroes championed, whichever side they chose, were brutally crushed by their enemies in martyrdom's aftermath. In fact, as Morris shows, their deaths often hastened the destruction of their causes, and redounded to the immense benefit of their oppressors, who went on to do the less romantic business of ruling Japan.
For the most part, the men who ended feudalism and established the military government of the shogunate, who later transformed Japan into a world power during the Meiji Restoration, who engineered all the major changes that would define Japan's historical course -- these are the country's villains. The heroes are the ones who died in futile gestures, attached themselves to lost causes, and were on the wrong side of history from the very beginning. If it were to play out this way in America, there would now be national holidays on General Lee's birthday, and a widespread disdain for that worldly striver, Abraham Lincoln.
What could explain this reverence for total failure? What does it say about the Japanese psyche? Morris, often citing the writings of the heroes themselves, many of whom had a penchant for poetry, highlights certain hallmarks of the Japanese hero. He is, above all, a man of sincerity, so wedded to his beliefs that he cannot deign to take the practical measures and compromises that will offer him a chance of success. He obeys only the impulses that stem from his deepest emotions, which makes him appear irrational and rash to the outside world. He recognizes the ephemeral nature of human life, which, like the iconic cherry blossom, blooms vividly just before its petals are scattered to the wind. And it is through death, particularly suicide, that the hero expresses his purity of intention, and his rejection of the debasing machinations of the material world.
It is, at first glance, a worldview that is horribly nihilistic. What would Montaigne, the probing rationalist of his inner life, say to this sweeping dismissal of human experience? But as you read Morris's book, it becomes less perverse, more human, and almost poignant. The strongest chapter in the book deals with the kamikaze pilots, who eagerly volunteer to sacrifice their lives even though they know that the war is lost, and that their flimsy aircraft will do nothing more than plop in the ocean. They write farewell letters to their parents, and drop in the envelopes fingernail parings and locks of hair -- all that will remain for their burial. The devout fealty expressed in these letters, as well as the intense gratitude they feel toward their parents, sheds a more noble light on the Japanese consciousness and its relation to the outer world. As one ardent suicide bomber puts it:
"You attach too much importance to life. Imagine that the whole world were to disappear except for you. Would you really want to go on living? If a human life has any important meaning, it is because of some relationship with other human beings. From this springs the principle of honour. Life rests on this idea, as exemplified by the conduct of our ancient samurai...who consciously devote their lives to serving something outside themselves."
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