I was about to comment something similar, then I looked into it a bit more and it seems like that's mainly settler colonial/US war propoganda.
Don't get me wrong, Kiri-sute gomen specifically and the status and role of Samurai in general were completely fucked, but Samurai never had the right to murder peasants at will and the notion that they could was propogated to otherise Japanese people.
Kiri-sute gomen or, literally Samurai's "authorisation to cut and leave the body" was meant to be about self defense. Samurai's right to strike and leave only applied if they were physically attacked or dishonoured in a codified set of ways which everyone in their society was aware of. After excercising Kiri-sute gomen a Samurai was confined to house arrest for 20 days while the local authorities investigated, and were required to provide a minimum of one eye-witness to back up their version of events. If their story couldn't be corroborated or the local authorities found against them they were without exception sentenced to death.
It's still extremely fucked that they could kill people for insulting their honour, and undoubtedly there were times and places where the local authorities let the Samurai get away with whatever the fuck, but overall they probably didn't have any more right to kill peasants than most French or English knights, and probably had more critical oversight and indisputable worse consequences for their murder of civilians than modern US police officers.
So why is the myth of "Samurai chopped bits off of peasants to test their swords" so prevalent?
Well, I think it first got serious traction in the wake of the Namamugi incident, when an English merchant was summarily executed by a Japanese princeling for refusing to dismount and bow. The British retaliated proportionately by spinning up the consent manufactories, sending a Royal Navy flotilla to extract unpayable reparatoins and navally bombarding the capital city of the province the merchant was killed in when those unpayable reparations weren't payed, and making a shockedpikachuface.jpg when the artillery emplacement in the capital city of that province returned fire and returning home to sulk when they realised they didn't have utter firepower superiority.
Of course, the Namamugi incident was in 1862. That may have been how the myth found its way to the west but it's probably not the reason we heard it. US WWII propaganda, put about that Samurai would maim or even kill peasants just to test their swords and peasants had to stay still and take it. They used this claim to present Japanese people as the Ur fascist other, both senseless, remorseless killers who thought nothing of murdering their own countrymen for sport, and cowardly weaklings who would brook any injustice so long as their god Emperor demanded it.
That's what I managed to gather from half an hours googling and having watched that US propaganda film before anyway. If anyone more knowledgable on the subject can correct me on some or all points I'd welcome it.
Well damn, color me informed. I guess when you live in a "modern" and "civilized" country where the cops are still allowed to do indulge whatever sick shit they want at will with no consequences, it's easy to assume that past times in other places would be the same. Turns out it's more projection from the worst nation on Earth., and I appreciate you taking the time to dispel it. Also, speaking of projection:
They used this claim to present Japanese people as the Ur fascist other, both senseless, remorseless killers who thought nothing of murdering their own countrymen for sport, and cowardly weaklings who would brook any injustice so long as their god Emperor demanded it.
I was about to comment something similar, then I looked into it a bit more and it seems like that's mainly settler colonial/US war propoganda.
Don't get me wrong, Kiri-sute gomen specifically and the status and role of Samurai in general were completely fucked, but Samurai never had the right to murder peasants at will and the notion that they could was propogated to otherise Japanese people.
Kiri-sute gomen or, literally Samurai's "authorisation to cut and leave the body" was meant to be about self defense. Samurai's right to strike and leave only applied if they were physically attacked or dishonoured in a codified set of ways which everyone in their society was aware of. After excercising Kiri-sute gomen a Samurai was confined to house arrest for 20 days while the local authorities investigated, and were required to provide a minimum of one eye-witness to back up their version of events. If their story couldn't be corroborated or the local authorities found against them they were without exception sentenced to death.
It's still extremely fucked that they could kill people for insulting their honour, and undoubtedly there were times and places where the local authorities let the Samurai get away with whatever the fuck, but overall they probably didn't have any more right to kill peasants than most French or English knights, and probably had more critical oversight and indisputable worse consequences for their murder of civilians than modern US police officers.
So why is the myth of "Samurai chopped bits off of peasants to test their swords" so prevalent?
Well, I think it first got serious traction in the wake of the Namamugi incident, when an English merchant was summarily executed by a Japanese princeling for refusing to dismount and bow. The British retaliated proportionately by spinning up the consent manufactories, sending a Royal Navy flotilla to extract unpayable reparatoins and navally bombarding the capital city of the province the merchant was killed in when those unpayable reparations weren't payed, and making a shockedpikachuface.jpg when the artillery emplacement in the capital city of that province returned fire and returning home to sulk when they realised they didn't have utter firepower superiority.
Of course, the Namamugi incident was in 1862. That may have been how the myth found its way to the west but it's probably not the reason we heard it. US WWII propaganda, put about that Samurai would maim or even kill peasants just to test their swords and peasants had to stay still and take it. They used this claim to present Japanese people as the Ur fascist other, both senseless, remorseless killers who thought nothing of murdering their own countrymen for sport, and cowardly weaklings who would brook any injustice so long as their god Emperor demanded it.
That's what I managed to gather from half an hours googling and having watched that US propaganda film before anyway. If anyone more knowledgable on the subject can correct me on some or all points I'd welcome it.
Well damn, color me informed. I guess when you live in a "modern" and "civilized" country where the cops are still allowed to do indulge whatever sick shit they want at will with no consequences, it's easy to assume that past times in other places would be the same. Turns out it's more projection from the worst nation on Earth., and I appreciate you taking the time to dispel it. Also, speaking of projection:
This is so many of us Americans lmao