| From: | runnerpaul@*****.com runnerpaul@*****.com |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Street Samurai [was: NPC Deckers] |
| Date: | Thu, 26 Aug 1999 21:58:47 -0400 (EDT) |
At 10:46 PM 8/25/99 -0400, IronRaven wrote:
:::Shane is a street scamurai.
::Kevin, I gather from repeated posts with this particular
::misspelling that
:
:Easy- I've yet to see one played in a manner that was worthy of the
:title.
<<Snip>>
:If you are going to play a samurai, at least learn the basics of
:Bushido.
<<Snip>>
:If I was to see one who played by someone who did even an hour's
:research into Bushido, and maybe watched Shogun and took some notes,
: or the Seven Samurai and chuckled a lot but still got the point
:(hey, I'd even settle of the Magnificant Seven some days), I would
:call them a "samurai". Until then, I'll have a snicker in the back
:of my head everytime I hear it.
Then I suppose you won't fault me for my own mental giggles at the
thought of a Street Samurai following a strict code of conduct from
Feudal Japan. After all, following the Bushido way is a noble thing
to do, but it's not very "Street" is it?
And that is the other half of the expression. _Street_ Samurai.
Frequently, the term does get shortened to just the second word, but
the full expression is Street Samurai, and I feel that the first word
carries equal weight.
Street. The concrete jungle that is post-modern downtown urban life.
"The Streets" -- a place someone can come from, a place you can go
when you have nowhere to go, but most of all, a state of mind. Gangs,
drugs, prostitution and other vices, the homeless, people struggling
to make it by and try to find a way out, crime of both the
disorganized and organized varieties, sub-cultures, countercultures,
so on and so forth.
The violence of urban warfare is one half of the concept, the half
denoted by the word "Street". Acting professionally, following a code
of conduct, is the other half of the concept, the half denoted by the
word "Samurai". When these two come together in equal parts, that is
what I think of as a "Street Samurai".
To this day, there is only one character from current popular culture
that I think exemplifies the "Street Samurai" concept as described
above. Nevertheless, even if there were a dozen examples, I suspect
this one would still top the list. That is the character of Hawk,
played by Avery Brooks, from the TV detective drama "Spenser: For
Hire", and it's spin-off, "A Man called Hawk". If you're unfamiliar
with the show, I apologize for the obscurity of the reference, and
recommend that you try to catch a rerun of it sometime.
When it comes down to it, a Street Samurai is not a Samurai, nor do I
think they were intended to be. A character who strived to live his
life by Bushido would certainly be interesting, but IMO, that would
make them an actual Samurai, not a Street Samurai.
This is very much like another slang term often heard in cyberpunk:
refering to hackers/deckers as "Console Cowboys".
Your typical Console Cowboy would most likely not be able to lasso
cattle, or even know which end of a horse to feed. They would
probably try to milk a steer if you told them to. Generally, they do
not wear boot spurs. Is it silly to call them cowboys then? Not
really, because the term is "Console Cowboy" and it describes an
entirely different concept.
A Console Cowboy is no more a cowboy than a Street Samurai is a
Samurai. Both are expressions that must be taken whole, to stand on
their own. While they borrow certain elements from the legendary
occupations that are their namesakes, that is only half of what
defines them.
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-- Paul Gettle, #186 of 1000 (RunnerPaul@*****.com)
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