Works in Progress asks :

How the Meiji Restoration bought in elites. Japanese samurai did not just accede to the total destruction of their way of life and status in society, but actively fought for it. How did the architects of the Meiji Restoration convince samurai to accept change?

I am trying to answer this question. Here is my plan for tackling it.

First, Japanese “samurai” did accede destruction of their way of life and status. But a lot of this acceding happened over 200 years before the Meiji Restoration.

Also, the architects of the Meiji Restoration were samurai actively looking to change their way of life!

We need to lay out who the elites were before and after Meiji Restoration, because a lot of what the restoration did was establish several paths elites could take from old to new.

The better question

The Real Question Becomes: How did existing elites use the 15-year window between Perry (1853) and full Meiji implementation (1868+) to strategically position themselves for the new world order?

It’s important to then define what samurai existed at what times. Some of these samurai were defined by rules, and some of the samurai were defined by ideas and culture. What “fighting for their way of life” did any of them do?

Something to keep in mind: the way of life in reality for samurai and the ideas and stories about samurai’s way of life need to be separated. The Meiji Restoration didn’t destroy “authentic samurai culture” - it began a (or continued a centuries-long) process of manufacturing an idealized version of it that never really existed. Hagakure’s 20th-century popularity proves this point beautifully.

Way of life = what outward life looked like

Culture = what inward life felt like (stories told)

Status = some combination of objective life and culture’s stories about it

I think the inner life of ideas is important, but I aim to focus on the practical realities of “way of life” in this piece.

Through the eyes of people who lived it

I want to illuminate the official rules governing elites, and also their ideas/ideals, and their economic opportunities by selecting excerpts from the lives of contemporaries who lived through the Meiji restoration:

  • Takamori Saigo (1828-1877)
    • attempted ritual suicide but failed
    • died for samurai interests
      • used modern weapons against modern weapons (do not believe Tom Cruise!)
  • Maresuke Nogi (1849-1912)
    • actually defeated Takamori in the Satsuma Rebellion, often thought of as the definitive end to resistance to the Meiji system
    • his life represents one interpretation of samurai values through the restoration
      • he chose to commit ritual suicide, violating both Tokugawa and Meiji values
    • died for samurai aesthetics
    • he fought in 3 out of 4 major military campaigns of the Meiji era
  • Nitobe Inazo
    • wrote for English audiences, possibly romanticizing greatly the Way of the Warrior, specifically for non-Japan audiences

Shibusawa Eiichi (1840-1931)Farmer’s son who gained samurai status; anti-foreign activistGovernment finance official → private entrepreneur and industrial organizer"Father of Japanese capitalism"; founded ~500 companies while maintaining Confucian ethics

Iwasaki Yatarō (1835-1885)Lower samurai family (lost status due to debt); domain trading officialMaritime entrepreneur building shipping empireFounded Mitsubishi zaibatsu; used government connections as “political merchant”

Contrast to previous era change

Compare the life of Musashi living through the previous upheaval in Japanese society (end of warring states period into Tokugawa shogunate- a period of peace and stability) to show how some ideals were maintained, others twisted, through Meiji in the lives of the other three men. Miyamoto Musashi was a type of samurai living through the transition from Warring States period through Tokugawa Shogunate. Miyamoto was an actual sword-fighter whereas the other men were not (though some did command modern militaries and learn swordplay as a sport). Miyamoto also was more focused on practical survival and staunchly against supporting or fighting against any larger order at the state level (a lone warrior seeking personal excellence and peace rather than political order)

What happened to the samurai?

First, there may not have even BEEN the idealized form of samurai we know when Meiji happened.

Ritual Suicide

The thread of the idea and implementation of 殉死 (ritual suicide) weaves through all discussion of samurai way of life and culutre throughout Meiji and beyond. Takamori and Nogi both attempted it and seem to have oriented their inner lives around it.

Foreign Influence

Musashi had Portuguese somewhere already in Japan. (maybe it isn’t even fair to think of “Japan” in the same way. Musashi might have thought more about daimyo’s and dojos than countries or nations)

Meiji had the arrival of Commodore Perry.

Writing on the Wall

Fukuzawa famously disseminated ideas of how other Asian powers had been brutalized by Western powers using different adaptation strategies. Only Thailand’s strategy was sound (India, Indonesia, China had all shown their strategies led to political infringement, war, and/or economic subjugation) They “bought in” because they had more time to see what worked and what didn’t in the face of western imperialism.

“He is credited today with virtually single-handedly introducing into insulated, fiercely parochial Japanese feudal culture the concepts of reason, human rights, freedom, individual and national independence, parliaments, and “Western Civilization””

Fictional Characters / Media Portrayal

It is no surprise the period of Meiji Restoration provides an evocative backdrop to many of today’s stories. A period where the old is struggling to become the new. Ideas about what it means to be a person, a member of the nation of Japan, and where we all fit into the wider world.

We should mention the most popular of these so we can see how much of today’s understanding is based on such fiction:

Reading List

v2 thoughts

What does it mean to be elite in Japan?

The Shogun was an obvious type of elite. But the “imprisoned” emperors throughout the Tokugawa Shogunate were another type of elite. Both of them came together to deal with Commodore Perry, and then Meiji Restoration happened!

Samurai are yet another type of elite throughout all periods. Their structure was highly systematized in Shogunate so we can look at that directly. We have seen that their spiritual or cultural aspect is notable muddier, but we’ll stay on the rules.

Who really had to buy in? What was the actual organization of Japan like before Commodore Perry’s black boats?

We can see that the Shogun was the real boss before Perry and the emperor might have been a kind of pet.

So take the inciting incident as Perry’s Black Boats, then Meiji Restoration as simply the winning elite adaptation to that incident.

the elites navigating the transition are:

  • Dutch traders
    • was there any local mercantile class before Perry? there must have been people trading at least indirectly with the outside world
  • Emperor
  • Shogunate
    • was this one man and his daimyo?
  • Samurai
    • higher? were these the daimyo?
    • lower?
  • Christian missionaries (maybe only “elite” in their ideas; might not have had any other power)

New Roles

  • Military

  • business

    • Entrepreneur

  • civil service

    • Bureaucrat
    • politician
    • teachers

  • Scientist

TK: maybe make a chart showing the number of samurai-born (old designation) people who went into different career fields

Old Elite Structure:

  • Tokugawa family and direct retainers
  • Major daimyo (domain lords)
  • Lower samurai administrators
  • Wealthy merchant houses
  • Scholar-bureaucrats

New Elite Structure:

  • Meiji oligarchs (mostly from Satsuma/Chōshū)
  • Industrial capitalists (zaibatsu founders)
  • Military leaders
  • Technical/scientific experts
  • Cultural interpreters/diplomats

Elite adaptation succeeds when external pressures create consensus that collective survival requires institutional change.