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human rights becomes part of one
s sense of identity. The belief that within
the individual resides the capacity for social good and social change is the
starting point
'
-
the optimism of the will that has to be created
-
against a
reality, which often materially speaking, or through the lens of
'
pessimism of
the intellect
'
, could be viewed rather di
erently.
'
Faith
'
is the experience of
con
'
that Hardacre describes with reference to new religions in the Japanese con-
text to understand how
dence in this narrative of optimism of the will, a particular
'
worldview
'
people appropriate
'
ideas and
'
how they use them
'
(Hardacre 1986: 7
erent from other reli-
gious movements in Japan is its particular interpretation of Nichiren, which
entails a particular kind of individual change as constituted within a wider
social world that is seen as needing an alternative collective political voice.
On the other hand, it is possible to argue for a more conservative under-
standing of this political activism as activities reinforce particular political
involvement and a relatively unquestioning support for one political party.
The narrative of
-
9). What makes Soka Gakkai di
, embodied as it is in the presence of
Ikeda, both reinforces and transcends the notion of the social structure as
some kind of dominant, insurmountable force. Chanting to have the same
spirit as Ikeda-Sensei, as the young people say they do, on the one hand
reinforces the structures in place and facilitates organised collective action;
however, counter-intuitively perhaps, they take action for a collective political
goal which reinforces the structures in place, but their self-empowerment is an
individual process in which they create their own histories and change
their own immediate environment. The process between structure and indivi-
dual action, which is not only applicable to their canvassing for Komeito
but applies to other activities, is a dynamic process. As it stands now there is
the development of young people who stand up for wider social issues of
concern with con
'
optimism of the will
'
dence and relatively nuanced debates. How this will unfold
in the future is open-ended. What will happen once Ikeda passes from the
scene when new interpretations of his role in the Buddhist lineage may be
forthcoming?
As it stands, Gramsci
s unorthodox, Marxist-inspired theories highlight the
importance of both ideas and political will. If historical possibilities are to
turn into actualities, he argued, there has to be not only a recognition of these
possibilities in the
'
first place but also the articulations of them in the form of
a persuasive narrative. The narrative has to be so persuasive that it can
move large groups of people into action to create foreseen results. Gramsci
highlighted this when he said:
In reality one can
'
foresee
'
to the extent that one acts, to the extent that
one applies a voluntary e
ort and therefore contributes concretely to
creating the results
'
foreseen
'
. Prediction reveals itself thus not as a sci-
enti
c act of knowledge, but as the abstract expression of the e
ort made,
the practical way of creating a collective will.
-
(Crehan 2002: 25
26)
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