Michael Hackett

At the risk of getting into "lifeboat ethics" I can't honestly say whether I would steal to feed my family or not. I know of three inter-related families in Oklahoma who were paragons of virtue until the dust bowl and depression days. Many of the men in the three families did just that and stole to feed their families. Today there is no stigma attached to being a criminal in this small group of people and virtually all of the men and quite a few of the women are career criminals. If I stole to feed my family I still would have been making a choice and I would still be a thief. Maybe an understandable thief, maybe a noble thief, maybe a humanistic thief, but a thief non-the-less. I probably could even rationalize my behavior and attribute it to those who had plenty, or big business, or big banks, or even my poor luck. Am I an honest man? I can only answer that I strive to be, even with myself.

As I said earlier, I think there was much more ura context to the comments attributed to O Sensei than we recognize today. Then again, he had a number of strange ideas that I don't understand or necessarily share.