SAMURAI, THE WARRIOR CLASS OF SPORT AND BUSHIDO AS A SET OF ETHICAL VALUES

Abstract

In today's world, where almost everything has become a material of consumption and profit, sportive activities also entered the process of industrialization. This process has turned sport into a commercial commodity, but it has also led to some important advantages. The main advantages are quality sports facilities, professional management and the huge distances covered on the road to universalization. Sport has become a science in its own right and athletes have assumed a new and powerful social and universal role as professional artists and managers of this science. This was not the case at all until the last century. Since the very early stages of history, sports had existed as a practical knowledge belonging to the art of military service, as if it were a special and secret treasure for this class. Whether sports gave birth to the military profession or whether the military profession gave birth to sports is a question that cannot be answered clearly, but it is a simple reality that they are inseparably integrated. Although this was the case all over the world, in Europe and Japan, these warrior athletes not only formed a separate class, but also established a set of moral norms, or rather a constitution of sorts. This study aims to focus on two of the most important schools of combat sports, the samurai and the knights, and to examine the Laws of Bushido and Chivalry.