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2010 FOCUS The Democratic Spirit Our vision for this year’s theme was inspired by Center founder Daisaku Ikeda’s argument that democracy is “a way of life whose purpose is to enable people to achieve spiritual autonomy, live in mutual respect, and enjoy happiness. It can be understood as an expression of human wisdom deployed toward a goal of harmonious coexistence. It is in this sense that it can be understood as a universal principal.” In keeping with these ideas, during 2010 we will investigate democracy not as a thing or system that one can simply possess — or export — but rather as a complex fabric of values, attitudes, practices, and commitments that inspire and enable us to live in a truly creative mode. The democratic spirit is present when we nurture the dynamic interrelationship of these qualities. Our events this year will culminate this fall with the annual Ikeda Forum for Intercultural Dialogue (date to be announced). The forum will feature top scholars dimensions of the democratic spirit in the work of figures such as Walt Whitman, John Dewey, Jane Addams, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Daisaku Ikeda. Our first event is coming right up on March 6. Virginia Benson, Mary Lee Morrison, and Russell Boulding will be on hand to discuss the lives and ideas of peace pioneers Elise Boulding and Daisaku Ikeda, whose new dialogue book, Into Full Flower: Making Peace Cultures Happen, is being published by the Center’s Dialogue Path Press on March 5. Peace cultures, says Boulding, are defined in large part by the creative management of differences, which could also be seen, as Daisaku Ikeda suggests, as the guiding spirit of democracy itself. Please join us this year in our exploration of the democratic spirit. Throughout the year, we will be producing interviews and articles, gathering essays, and reporting on the Ikeda Forum to help round out a vision of "the democratic spirit." These will be posted, at left, under Articles and Essays. Read articles and essays from the 2009 focus, "Humanizing Our Lives, Humanizing Our World." Read articles and essays from the 2008 focus, "Understanding Death, Appreciating Life."
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“Did you, too, O friend, suppose democracy was only for elections, for politics, and for a party name? I say democracy is only of use there that it may pass on and come to its flowers and fruits in manners." Walt Whitman, "Democratic Vistas" |
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Ikeda Center for Peace, Learning, and Dialogue
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