Philosophy

Honor

The sense of honor, implying a vivid consciousness of personal dignity and worth, could not fail to characterize the samurai, born and bred to value the duties and privileges of their profession.

Though the word–ordinarily given nowadays as the translation of “honor”–was not used freely, the idea was conveyed by such terms as na (“name”) men-moku (“countenance”), guai-bun (“outside hearing”), reminding us respectively of the biblical use of “name,” of the evolution of the term “personality” from the Greek mask, and of “fame.” A good name–one’s reputation, or “the immortal part of one’s self, what remains being bestial”–assumed, as a matter of course, any infringement upon its integrity was felt as shame, and the sense of shame (Ren-chi-shin) was one of the earliest to be cherished in juvenile education. “You will be laughed at,” “it will disgrace you,” “are you not ashamed?” were the last appeal to correct behavior on the part of a youthful delinquent. Such a recourse to his honor touched the most sensitive spot in the child’s heart, as though it had been nursed on honor while he was in his mother’s womb; for most, truly is honor a prenatal influence, being closely bound up with strong family consciousness.

“In losing the solidarity of families,” says Balzac, “society has lost the fundamental force which Montesquieu named ‘Honour.’”

Indeed, the sense of shame seems to me to be the earliest indication of the moral consciousness of the race.

From The Annotated Bushido