All life is a manifestation of the spirit, the manifestation of love. And the Art of Peace is the purest form of that principle. A warrior is charged with bringing a halt to all contention and strife. Universal love functions in many forms; each manifestation should be allowed free expression. The Art of Peace is true democracy.
Morihei Ueshiba, The Art of Peace
But if there is to be diplomacy there have to be diplomats, that is, people capable—unlike those who dispatch them—of discovering, finally, what their principals really cherish—at the price of some sacrifices that they learn to detect during often interminable negotiations.
Bruno Latour, An Inquiry into Modes of Existence
This is one of the first commonalities I noticed between aikido and rhetoric–that both aim at democracy. As I discussed in my first post on this topic, the whole raison d’être of rhetoric was the need for a social technology that could make a democracy out of what had been a group of warring tribes. Similarly, O-Sensei evolved aikido after witnessing the horror and destruction of World War II on the communities in Japan, particularly the atomic devastation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There has to be a better way. There has to be some way to live in peace together on this planet, all of us, and we’re going to find it. These are the sentiments that drive practitioners of both aikido and rhetoric.
I’ve quoted Bruno Latour here even though he doesn’t claim to be a rhetorician: nevertheless, people in my field have found him a good guide to our new world, in which nonhuman agents such as hurricanes and viruses make as many political demands on us and disturb our peace as much as any head of state does. How can we practice Latour’s radical conception of “diplomacy” in this situation where we need to communicate with beings that don’t speak our language? Both O-Sensei’s words as well as recent work by rhetoricians on the non-verbal practices of attunement, embodiment, and affect can help us serve as diplomats who make space on our planet for the flourishing of all beings, not just human ones.
The Rookery 