lbb

I can't claim the level of scholarship of many of those participating in those threads, but it seems to me that comparing aikido to bushido is comparing apples to oranges. Bushido was a "way", a do, that was reserved for members of a certain social class. It was an ideal whose particulars changed over the centuries, not a static thing, and while certainly not every bushi lived up to its ideals, it would seem nonsensical for a peasant to pursue bushido. Aikido doesn't seem to have any such class connotations.