Self Defense ,,, It’s Personal! Righteous Character & Rectitude

By John Farnam

By John Farnam

Ft Collins, CO –-(

Just a few decades after Japan’s Warrior Class was officially abolished in the 1880s, US President Teddy Roosevelt raved about a newly-released book, entitled “Bushido: The Soul of Japan.”

He bought five-dozen copies for family and friends. In this slim volume, which went on to become an international best-seller, author Nitobe Inazo interprets the Samurai Code of behavior: how chivalrous men should act in their personal and professional lives. Though some have criticized Nitobe’s work as romanticized yearning for a non-existent Age of Chivalry, there’s no question that his work builds on thousand-year-old precepts of manhood that originated in chivalrous behavior on the part of some, though certainly not all, Samurai.

What today’s readers may find most enlightening about Bushido is the emphasis on compassion, benevolence, and the other non-martial qualities of true manliness.

Here are Bushido’s Eight Virtues as explicated by Nitobe:

• I. Rectitude or Justice. Bushido refers not only to martial rectitude, but to personal rectitude: Rectitude or Justice, is the strongest Virtue of Bushido. A well-known Samurai defines it this way: “Rectitude is …Read the Rest

  Source:: AmmoLand