What ended the samurai?
Much later, around the 19th century, a US naval officer, Commodore Perry, forced Japan to open it previous closed society to trade. It was at this time that the leaders of Japan realized that the “old” samurai ways would not be able to compete militarily with Western weaponry. There was a movement to adopt Western technology, which eventually lead to the illegalization of samurai. Of course, this policy wasn’t very popular with some old school samurai, who fought the modernization movement. Eventually, however, techonology won. Samurai lost. In modern day Japan, remnants of the samurai culture still remain. Modern Japanese businessmen still find samurai technique applicable to forming corporate strategy and will study writings of past samurai for business enlightenment. Modern day Japanese athletes do the same. In a way, the samurai may be gone, but their influence on methods of handling competition and conflict are alive and well in Japan.
