What Daisaku Ikeda fails to teach,
"Three hundred thousand men fought on this murderous day of Sept.7th with an unexampled implacability. Eight hundred canon vomited forth death into the ranks of the two armies. This battle to which the Russians have given the name Borodino and which the French call the battle of La Moscova is one of the most murderous battles which were ever fought...." -- Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Court of the First Empire, Volume 3 By Claude François baron de Méneval
Napoleon is known for helping democratize Europe and extending rights that we now consider basic to the common people.
ReplyDeleteEven a heartless villain loves his mother. That doesn't mean we look up to the heartless villain. Perhaps Ikeda's admiration for Napolean has more to do with Napolean's worldly success as a man of short physical stature? Perhaps Ikeda suffers from the Napolean complex?
ReplyDeleteBesides, the most basic right, is the right to live. The only reason I can see to kill others is in defense of one's life and the life of the innocent. For democracy, fair taxation, and all other civil rights, other than the right to live, I posit that there are other means than killing one's fellow man. The case of the Muslim fundamentalists, is one such example of the latter, one's right to kill in order to save oneself and life of innocents.
ReplyDeleteThe world is a wide and varied place. Not everyone sees Napoleon the same way. Aside from being remembered as a megalomaniac, he's also remembered as someone who gave the European aristocratic class a run for their money and who was able to enact change with enduring effects. Harping on Ikeda for talking about Napoleon is like harping on him for talking about Martin Luther King - a man who, if we are brutally honest, could be remembered as a philanderer as much as for being a world changing activist.
ReplyDeleteWe all have flaws, Dr. Rogow. You, me, and even Bd. Fame Seeker, also known as Bd. Collector of Honorary Doctorates. We all get lost in the thickets from eon to eon.
Fair enough!
ReplyDelete