How did the entire country of Japan embrace politeness for more than ten centuries? It helped that the samurai required everyone to study the code, commit it to memory, and live it every day—but other cultures have required that kind of study, and they didn’t last nearly as long. The samurai endured because of two additional techniques. First, they detailed every permutation of potential cultural or ethical dilemmas to prevent the code from being misinterpreted or deliberately misused. Second, they stamped their code deep with vivid stories.
