Daisaku Ikeda, Jacques Rancière, and Human Education for Justice and Relational Growth

• In Event: 70.016 - Daisaku Ikeda and Relationality in Educational Philosophy, Policy, and Practice: Critical and Postfoundational Approaches

Abstract

This presentation introduces the session and explicates Ikeda’s (e.g., 1991-2014) educational philosophy and practice based on a bilingual-bicultural (Japanese/English—East/West) analysis of his educational writings and dialogues published from 1949 to the present. Cross-linguistic scrutiny of 65 years of Ikeda’s educational thought delimited in texts available in English and only in Japanese suggest that while Ikeda’s perspective of Soka education is available in English, less, if anything, is known about his more frequently articulated perspective of ningen kyoiku. Literally “human education,” but frequently (mis)translated into English as “humanistic education” and “humane education,” Ikeda’s ningen kyoiku transcends the narrow, extant Western (American and European) perspectives of humanistic education (e.g., Heidegger, 1947; Rich, 1971; Waller, 1977). Ikeda conceptualizes ningen kyoiku from the perspective of the Nichiren Buddhist principles of dependent origination (engi) and oneness of life and its environment (esho funi). This perspective should not be misunderstood as Ikeda’s advocacy for Buddhist proselytization in education; quite the opposite (e.g., Ikeda, 2010b). Rather, Ikeda understands that life does not end at our own skin, and our own growth, development, and fundamental happiness therefore depend on those of the subjectively different other. Ikeda envisions ningen kyoiku as a process of teacher and student together, relationally transforming internally and cultivating wisdom, courage, and compassion toward the full complexity of a human condition that he calls the “greater self.” This deep, inner transformation is a conscious and persistent self-mastery that entails eschewing the lesser self “caught up in the snares of egoism” and cultivating the greater self that is actualized in causality and spatiotemporally infinite (Ikeda, 2010a, p. 175). Rooted in dependent origination and oneness of life and environment, the greater self can be understood simply and practically as one that fully identifies and empathizes with others’ suffering, and is thus compelled to relieve that suffering; it is an open, expansive character amplified by an empathy that extends not only to other people but to all life. For Ikeda, this greater self of one’s full humanity emerges wholly only through persistent dialogic engagement with the other, where the other must be perceived as equal and equally valuable to the self (Ikeda, 2010a).
In practical terms, Ikeda has realized this theoretical perspective in multiple ways and contexts over the past 65 years. I take as one example his essays and practices in the context of Japan’s 1960s university student power demonstrations. Whereas Japanese politicians, the public, and renowned educators critiqued the demonstrating students and viewed them as beneath themselves (e.g., Louis Althusser, 1918 – 1990), Ikeda (e.g., 1969) endeavored to empower students and fostered educators who not only embraced students as equals but also viewed their own growth as dependent on the students’ growth. This recalls the perspectives of Althusser’s student Jacques Rancière (b. 1940; e.g., 1991). Thus, this paper concludes with a theoretical comparison of Ikeda’s and Rancière’s perspectives as a way of developing a cross-cultural understanding of how we and the world are changed in a critical and post-foundational curriculum.

Author

• Jason Goulah, DePaul University