Japanese history help!?

Question

explaining how different members of the elite (samurai, ex-samurai, daimyo) in Japan understood or conceptualized the transformation that Japan underwent from the late-1850s through the 1880s or how conceptualizations of this transformation changed over that period.

And I also have to make an argument .

Answer 1

Can you refer to my blog ?

Answer 2

I don't get you meant "conceptualization".
Tokugawa shogunate was losing its power and control in the early 1860s.
After the Meiji Restoration (late 1860s), Samurai class (It is just a class. Not all the Samurai was elite.) had to face the change of Japan.

Japan government have had a tendency to proceed things with issuance of laws or ordinances (since ancient time to today). This era was same.
After the Meiji Restoration, Meiji Emperor promulgated the "Charter Oath" and people took this as a declaration that Japan aggressively proceed westernization.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_Oath

The name of the class was changed. Daimyo and Kuge were called "Kazoku".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazoku
Bushi class (mostly Samurai) was called "Shizoku"(warrior class), and other farmers, artisans, and merchants were called "Heimin"(commons).

In 1871, "Danpatsu rei" (Hair Cutting edict) was issued. Men had to cut their Chonmage. Also Postal service was started in this year and it became nation-wide service soon.
In 1873, Gregorian calendar was adopted.
In 1876, "Haito edict". This bans the wearing of swords except police and military men.

Thus, government was trying to change the era with ordinances and orders step by step, and people had to accept the change.
Of course, there were lots opposition movements and rebellions occurred.
However, after the suppression of "Southwestern War"(Satsuma Rebellion) in 1877, people came to criticize the government with argument and free speech rather than rebellions.

These shifts occurred within 15 years, from late 1860s to 1880.

Answer 3

I think a major theme in the conceptualization was of threat by a foreign culture (a feeling alive and well in modern Japan also).
Point 4. of this article ('Japanese reactions to the Western presence... Some samurai expressed...') seems to on the right track to getting at the answer to your specific question about understanding/ conceptualization.

http://www.indiana.edu/~hisdcl/h207_2002/meijirestorationnotes.htm

I got it by running a search in Yahoo: meiji restoration samurai. There's probably a lot more under that search you could use for your reseach.
(not a big fan of wikipedia, prefer academic websites - quality control)

[Added: about Wikipedia as a source, there was an interesting comment in an article from the online edition of the Mainichi Daily news today which said an official from the Imperial Household Agency had been deleting references on Wikipedia that criticized Imperial tombs.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20071005p2a00m0na029000c.html
Its freedom to edit is too open to abuse and it can be manipulated by emtremists/historical revisionists.]

Answer 4

Hmm...I guess I would go with the argument that the restoration was essentially a reactionary way to deal with modernity. The restoration was a supposed return to an imagined golden age of the emperor that never really existed in the first place. Thus the elites could rationalize the changes that were taking place as some sort of return to a lost tradition.

Answer 5

Some obviously fiercely resisted (loss of status, loss of job, collapse of caste system, xenophobia).
Some saw the military technology of the West and decided it was time to embrace change (sense of "we've been fighting with the same weapons for 1000 years.").
Some samurai clearly saw the obsolete aspects of the shogunate and/or were disgruntled and were (politically) ready for a change.
Due to the shogunate's iron fist, lots of local samurai became unemployed ex-samurai as their lords got sacked or deposed. Such unemployed warriors would have gladly embraced a shift towards "no more shogunate."