Quote:
Katherine Derbyshire wrote:
As I previously noted, neither professional fighters nor successful street fighters are generally known for their excellence as human beings. In fact, you could argue that "success" in "real fights" requires a level of viciousness that's not really compatible with life in civilized society.(...)
Which is not to say that "tough training" isn't valuable, just that I think it's important to be clear about exactly what one is trying to achieve, and what the tradeoffs are. Remember that the most "martially effective" samurai were brutal killers first, and gentlemen and philosophers only after they had eradicated their enemies.
He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you. -- Nietzsche
Katherine
|
Interesting
Kat.
As stated, the world whence this thread originates is a world whose challenge won't be satisfied as long as you (generic "you"), for one
valid reason or another, won't kick their asses. That is the
only language
that world understands. There is not
another language that satisfies it.
If you (generic "you") want to discharge karate from an accusation like this, you have to kick ass using karate.
If you (generic "you") want to discharge judo from an accusation like this, you have to kick ass using judo.
And
so if you (generic "you") want to discharge aikido from an accusation like this, you have to kick ass using
aikido.
So, the answer is one:
kick-ass aikido.
Once repeated that just for summarizing's sake -a very simple summary, and yet it's not compex answers what answers simple questions- your argument that meeting viciousness with a "vicious" aikido (whenece "vicious" aikido would be just a way to rephrase
kick-ass aikido with your chosen language, but not because I see anything vicious in it) has a startling simply answer as well.
You have to defeat
physically evil and viciousness,
without becoming a vicious person yourself. This is, indeed, a
peak of ethical excellence.
To some degree, it may even be what
aiki is all about
: budo excellence, capable of meeting evil without being corrupted by evil.
Be like Robin Hood, an
Aikido Hood: rob, to implement the good. Fight to implement
righteousness, to implement
justice. But do
fight, do accept the challenge on its ground of election.
Show
evil that you can
fight evil, accepting its challenge on the physical ground too (because that is
precisely the ground upon which evil thinks you can
not meet it...), without being
contaminated by evil.
Your notorious Nietzsche sentence does not mean that if you stare into the abyss of evil, you will become evil yourself. Rather, you may become terrible. I am not.
In the
eternal fight between evil and good, you must become able to stare evil right into the eyes, squarely, and yet unmoved. The asnwer to this accusation is: be like a honourable
samurai:
terrible with evil, and yet intent on good.
The answer to your observations, Kat, are already given, and stay all in one world: a
samurai's world.
In the
noblest sense of the word.
I am sure you understand that word, which has been since centuries the answer to your rightful type of doubts.
ps and let's not forget that the Buddha Gautama did not come from a family of
brahamins (that is, monks), but from a family of...
ksatria (that is:
fighters): these folks, quintessential producers of good and liberation, they were...
soldiers.