Readings
The Age of ‘Soft Power’ by Daisaku Ikeda (2001)
- Drawing from the Buddhist concept of dependent origination, Ikeda argues that cultural and moral influence — what he calls soft power — is essential to building a peaceful and sustainable society.
- I think this maps directly onto the argument of this module: that the home is not a retreat from civic life but its earliest site of preparation. The values we absorb through caregiving, conflict, ritual, and relational repair are the same ones we later carry into systems design, public discourse, and institutional life. This essay helps name that transmission — not as ideology or curriculum, but as the lived texture of care.
Past Essays
- Tricky Moral Questions About Information: Frames news consumption as a moral task, asking how we decide which stories to hold, act on, or release.