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The Mystery of The katana
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5342164" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Because one of the defining characteristics of Western Civilization since at least Roman Times is that unlike pretty much any other wide ranging culture in the world, and in direct opposition to typical tribal cultures, Western Civilization is self-deprecating. That is to say, you can pretty much be sure that you are influenced by Western Civlization if you are always going around saying, "We suck. Everyone else is better, smarter, and more virtuous than we are."</p><p></p><p>The good part of this cultural trait is that it makes the culture as a whole self-reflective in a way that most cultures aren't. That is to say, Western Cultures tend to be more aware of their own flaws - in some cases even hyper-aware of them. And it also tends to make Western Culture much more willing to adapt and learn from other cultures it encounters (a trait it shares, quite interestingly, with the Japanese culture).</p><p></p><p>The downside of this trait is that we tend to romanticize anything we discover in another culture which is novel. And in this case, that means we develop this whole mythology around eastern martial arts generally and katana's specifically that elevates them from being merely a highly refined art, to something supernatural magical and simply better than anything that the West could possibly do. </p><p></p><p>What I think is more likely the case is that Western melee arts - both armed and unarmed - had been largely depricated and considered increasingly obselete by the time the West really encountered the East. In the West, martial arts had been replaced as essential war making skills by marksmenship and close formations. This was particularly true in the west post firearms, but the West's whole theory of war making was more centered on formations and logistics than in Japan - where it stayed centered on personal prowess and the prowess of your weapons. So when the West really encountered the East, not only was it encountering a society which had had more time to refine melee arts by virtue of putting them into use over a longer period, but at a time when its only melee arts had decayed been reduced essentially to hobbies and sports for aristocrats. So suddenly discovering this 'new technology' at a time when in the west its own technical investment in melee combat had diminished made eastern martial arts seem doubly cool and magnified the usual Western responce to anything novel in another culture.</p><p></p><p>Of course what we have since discovered is that we weren't as technically backward as we thought, and that being impressed with karate and katanas was roughly the same as the Chinese being impressed by Western mechanical clocks. We'd independently invented that stuff (or its equivalent) hundreds of years previously and forgotten we'd done so.</p><p></p><p>You can see the same sort of thing playing out in for example, romanticizing the Mauri, which really is to early stone age martial arts, what the Samurii is to Steel Age.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 5342164, member: 4937"] Because one of the defining characteristics of Western Civilization since at least Roman Times is that unlike pretty much any other wide ranging culture in the world, and in direct opposition to typical tribal cultures, Western Civilization is self-deprecating. That is to say, you can pretty much be sure that you are influenced by Western Civlization if you are always going around saying, "We suck. Everyone else is better, smarter, and more virtuous than we are." The good part of this cultural trait is that it makes the culture as a whole self-reflective in a way that most cultures aren't. That is to say, Western Cultures tend to be more aware of their own flaws - in some cases even hyper-aware of them. And it also tends to make Western Culture much more willing to adapt and learn from other cultures it encounters (a trait it shares, quite interestingly, with the Japanese culture). The downside of this trait is that we tend to romanticize anything we discover in another culture which is novel. And in this case, that means we develop this whole mythology around eastern martial arts generally and katana's specifically that elevates them from being merely a highly refined art, to something supernatural magical and simply better than anything that the West could possibly do. What I think is more likely the case is that Western melee arts - both armed and unarmed - had been largely depricated and considered increasingly obselete by the time the West really encountered the East. In the West, martial arts had been replaced as essential war making skills by marksmenship and close formations. This was particularly true in the west post firearms, but the West's whole theory of war making was more centered on formations and logistics than in Japan - where it stayed centered on personal prowess and the prowess of your weapons. So when the West really encountered the East, not only was it encountering a society which had had more time to refine melee arts by virtue of putting them into use over a longer period, but at a time when its only melee arts had decayed been reduced essentially to hobbies and sports for aristocrats. So suddenly discovering this 'new technology' at a time when in the west its own technical investment in melee combat had diminished made eastern martial arts seem doubly cool and magnified the usual Western responce to anything novel in another culture. Of course what we have since discovered is that we weren't as technically backward as we thought, and that being impressed with karate and katanas was roughly the same as the Chinese being impressed by Western mechanical clocks. We'd independently invented that stuff (or its equivalent) hundreds of years previously and forgotten we'd done so. You can see the same sort of thing playing out in for example, romanticizing the Mauri, which really is to early stone age martial arts, what the Samurii is to Steel Age. [/QUOTE]
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