zedmonkey

Especially considering how complex some of the history is with these topics, particularly the Samurai's role in Japanese society, both good and bad, throughout history.

The other really basic, self-centred business concern here is do you ever want to expand into China? Apart from the dis-respect, turning up with a heavy Japanese influence all over your product isn't going to win you any hearts in a lot of regions in China. "Zen at War" and a few other books are a good insight into things like the Nanking Massacre and Buddhism's role in training the more extreme Japanese forces (Kamikaze pilots and etc.).

At a fundamental level, it just all feels a bit racist. We've evolved past drawing buck toothed cartoons in Sanpan hats, these days people would be genuinely horrified at that. But we can still pillage the religions of the regions without a second thought?

Apart from all that, calling someone a "Code Ninja" or "Samurai Developer", or doing programming "Kata" is laughable. We write software, some of it is borderline ok in terms of quality. A lot of us dedicate lots and lots of our waking hours to doing this. It doesn't mean we're some kind of elite. It's another hobby, another job, it earns some money. It's not like any of us are making actual, material sacrifice to achieve these lukewarm heights. Most of it boils down to white collar fantasy rather than anything resembling the intent of these kind of names.

This meme that Zen is a philosophy is incredibly unfair / misguided. It's a religion. It's a branch of Mahayana Buddhism, it's practised as a religion, in some regions it still has the aspects of Guru and Deity worship that have been inherited from the larger schools. The full name of the religion is Zen Buddhism.

As someone who has been involved with the religion and with Japanese friends who are also a part of it, it's incredibly belittling when this idea gets spread around. It's only in the West that all of the cultural and religious background has been stripped out and turned into a marketing device.

I often joke that if Buddhism had more extremist members we'd have a lot more holy wars than anyone else. Dressed up Buddhas, Zen stapled onto every two bit startup and cheap product, blogs about consumerist driven minimalism selling themselves as "Zen". It really is ridiculous. What is being done here is just as offensive to eastern cultures as if an East Asian startup branded itself using Christian or Islamic imagery or terms, citing that it's all just "philosophy".

Anyone stealing these terms and imagery really should read some of the critiques of Western misappropriation of Eastern "Spirituality" like "The Scientific Buddha" or "Selling Spirituality". Or even just take five minutes to consider the countries and contexts they might want to operate in as they grow.