Who is the Last Samurai?

[Jonathan Minton]

One of the biggest problems with relating the particular to the universal is in assuming the particular to better represent the universal than it actually does. There are presently, as always, a certain number of 'political' international issues that occupy the minds of most educated people with 'internationalist' worldviews (though the particular and specific international issues these are change from time to time), and assuming that these particular considerations are universal, when relating to an ahistorical universal reality, might be fallacious. The 'George W. Bush', 'neo-colonial imperialist' angle might be one such pitfall.
To suggest that GWB represents not just represents a contemporary variant of Western imperialism, but Western imperialism 'in-itself', might be a fallacy in an argument that posits 'West Vs East', 'Civil Vs. Ethical'... and so forth.

So-called 'White guilt', the positing -by those who have best benefited from a particular form of society - of ideals that run largely counter to those of the society which has benefited them, could smack of hypocrisy. But then it could also be suggestive of a certain kind of transcendental observation that has the potential to benefit 'the Universal Society' (as it might be described).

'White guilt' hints at a malaise with US (and by extension 'Western') 'modern materialism' and 'economic reductionism'. To suggest that other societal values, simply by virtue of being 'non-Western', are better, might be a crass and Romantic simplification of the issue. An implicit belief in the purity of pre-industrial societies, and thus a belief in the values of such societies in providing social equity rather than anarchic survivalism, might hark back to the 18th Century French notion of the 'Noble Savage', as developed and promoted by Rousseau.

>From what I understand of it, however, Japanese society was in no way 'simple' or 'undeveloped' at the time when it encountered 'the West' - The class system - symbolised by the honour of the samurai  - could not be considered 'savage'. 

Unfortunately, as a UK citizen, I've not had the chance to see the film yet... if 'The Last Samurai' chooses to use Japanese 'Westernisation' as a re-run of Native American and Vietnam ?guilty narratives? then it may be fighting a symbolic battle using the wrong symbol... I'm not sure 19th century Japan should be considered simple even if it were less 'technologically pre-disposed' than many Western nations... The 'development' of a civilisation is better represented by how developed its official state and societal infrastructure are, than by how efficient its weaponry is in killing (though, in a fractious  and ?dishonourable? society such as the West, the two are ineluctably linked)? doe-eyed Romanticism should not be applicable to 19th century Japanese society.