One of the consequences of the Occupy movement’s emergence onto the scene over the last nine months is the escalating disagreement about the role of various strands of nonviolence and nonviolent action in the struggle. In the process, misconceptions about nonviolent strategy are being unfortunately perpetuated by earnest adherents of principled nonviolence and require correction. The phenomenon of nonviolent action is already misunderstood in most media. To see it further distorted by our own colleagues is disheartening.
In an article called “How to Sustain a Revolution” that appeared on Truthout several months ago, Stephanie Van Hook made an eloquent case for personal transformation in the context of nonviolent struggle. The essence of her argument was that acting nonviolently is not enough to sustain a people-powered revolution, and that a person must have nonviolent intentions and the willingness and ability to engage in an internal discipline of personal nonviolence if the struggle is to be truly won. On this point, I don’t have any serious disagreement. While I am not sure I would make the same case that nonviolent success requires this level of individual transformation prior to the waging of the struggle, Van Hook’s argument is similar enough to the case I would make — that nonviolent success requires genuine appreciation of one’s own (and thus our collective) power. I am someone who does not align solely with one camp of nonviolence or nonviolent action, and am someone who believes that both principle and strategy are magnified when they are married. I think our differences here are mostly rhetorical rather than conceptual.
However, in describing what she sees as a key challenge to nonviolent success in the ongoing people power struggles around the world, Van Hook writes:
Those who profess a commitment to what is called strategic nonviolence know how to start a revolution, that is, in the same way that one would have to fight if one is the weaker party: you do what you your opponent is trying to prevent you from doing, you cast all or most of the blame on them, and you draw upon the sympathies of the masses — the “reference public” — to express your power. In this approach it’s acceptable to use threat, humiliation, and coercion to get what you want, and you often accept short-term and short-lived “success” as your goal. Nonviolence in this approach is simply refraining from physical violence while one’s inner frustrations and pains continue to grow, or are left wholly unresolved. After lighting the match of revolution, a person using nonviolence by this definition can walk away from the responsibility to carrying it forward for the long run. So a people left their guns at home this round? Where will it get them when they decide to take them back out because a limited vision of nonviolence did not bring about the deep changes needed?
Although I believe it was unintentional, Van Hook’s characterization of adherents of “strategic nonviolence” seems to be guilty of the same sort of stereotyping with which she takes issue. I know hundreds of scholars, activists and journalists who study and engage in this form of struggle, and have yet to meet one who has “professed a commitment to strategic nonviolence.” Such an assertion does not make sense because nonviolent strategy is not an article of faith or a belief system. More concerning, though, is the implication that those engaging in strategic nonviolent action are not just unprincipled, but also undisciplined and lacking in a basic sense of social or civic responsibility.
One part of the problem is in the mislabeling of the phenomenon. By calling it “strategic nonviolence” instead of “strategic nonviolent action” or “nonviolent strategy,” she implies that the phenomenon is fairly classified as a category of nonviolence, but this isn’t accurate. Nonviolence implies commitment to a philosophy that eschews violence in all forms and that adheres to some key principles. By calling it “strategic nonviolence,” which is juxtaposed conceptually against “principled nonviolence,” the field of study with which Van Hook identifies, the suggestion is that the commitment to nonviolence has been made for non-principled reasons. But according to Van Hook’s principled outlook, a person who engages in nonviolent action for reasons other than commitment to principle is suspect because they are not embracing or practicing “true” nonviolence. No wonder there is tension — the person practicing principled nonviolence sees the person practicing “strategic nonviolence” as a pretender.
The other problem with this terminology is that it implies that the phenomenon being discussed is actually attempting to be what is understood by adherents of principled nonviolence as nonviolence. Recall that nonviolence embodies an entire philosophy and set of principles regarding the ethics of eschewing violence. Nonviolent strategy — defined as organized, collective action in pursuit of a clear and achievable objective, carried out with nonviolent weapons — does not, on the other hand, require the practitioner to adopt a philosophy in order to utilize it. In fact, to me, this is a great appeal of nonviolent strategy: its inclusiveness. Anyone can practice it. There is no spiritual or philosophical litmus test. And since unity is a criterion for success in nonviolent struggle, inclusiveness is a very helpful means to achieving that end. And moreover, contrary to principled critics of “strategic nonviolence,” I would argue, the unwillingness to adopt a philosophy of principled nonviolence from the outset does not necessarily make the subsequent action an inferior form of nonviolence. I suppose this is where Van Hook and I really part ways. She wants nonviolent action to be engaged in with full intention and consciousness of the power of nonviolence, while I believe that the use of nonviolent tools produces an appreciation for the power of the phenomenon and probably does more to convert skeptics than any other mechanism. In other words, I believe that commitment to the principle can evolve from the action, which itself is a result of the strategy.
On the other hand, by demanding a commitment to a spiritual philosophy as a prerequisite for joining the struggle, there is a danger of being perceived as (or of actually being) exclusionary. Such a requirement suggests that in order for the practice of nonviolence to be effective, the activist must hold a set of spiritual beliefs about, say, the unity of all life or the imperative to turn the other cheek. But there have been many successful nonviolent struggles waged by people who either held religious or spiritual beliefs different than those commonly found amongst practitioners of principled nonviolence, or who held spiritual beliefs very different from others in the movement, so that there was no unity over fundamental belief systems. The unity came from the commitment to nonviolent action as the most effective set of means to address the injustice. Would these movements have been formed and the struggles been waged if there had been a spiritual litmus test in place before action was taken? I doubt it.
Nonviolent action, when done well, can achieve results. When people come to see its efficacy and power through its use, they may develop more appreciation for the principles called for in Van Hook’s treatise. But whether activists get to the principle prior to action or through it does not matter. One need not necessarily be fully converted to the philosophy of nonviolence before being willing to try a new means of waging struggle. Willingness to take such a risk is the essence of courage — the most important personal quality in the nonviolent activist.
My second major concern about Van Hook’s article can be summed up by a look at her closing paragraph, where she states, “It is time we moved away from cruelty and alienation, and refused to give it a place in our toolkits of revolution … [E]very small victory in becoming kinder is fuel for the fire for the long-term struggle for freedom. It is much harder than strategic nonviolence.”
Again, this is a cogent argument, and I absolutely endorse the notion that our evolution as a species depends on cultivating more empathy and compassion for others. But, in the process, Van Hook conflates emphasis on strategy with unharnessed anger. Earlier in the article, she references Occupy protesters who seem to be engaging in nothing but venting their anger publicly. I am not sure, why, however, she associates that phenomenon with “strategic nonviolence.” The assumption seems to be based on a caricature of nonviolent strategy.
In reality, it is quite rare that overt anger and an emphasis on strategy are seen together in the context of a struggle. As a strategist, I would strongly discourage activists from the kinds of behavior with which Van Hook takes issue. Such behavior alienates people, the death knell for a nascent movement. Additionally, it is hard to be constructive as an activist if your energy is focused only on obstruction. By starting with the questionable assumption that strategy and anger are interchangeable, it is not at all surprising that Van Hook comes to the conclusion that emphasis on strategy is not enough to sustain a revolution.
Ironically, I would use the same quote from Martin Luther King Jr. cited by Van Hook — “We harnessed our anger and released it under discipline for maximum effect” — but would interpret it a little differently. To me, King is arguing here for the strategic effectiveness of disciplining anger, even while recognizing anger as an inevitable consequence of injustice. He is not, in my view, arguing against anger as such. Gandhi himself was not above the occasional use of sarcasm — a form of speech often considered to be verbal aggression by adherents of principled nonviolence.
Once again, Van Hook essentially creates a straw man by opposing principle and strategy against one another, and then adds insult to injury by stating that the former is “harder” than the latter. The truth is that I’m not sure it always is harder. Deeply ingrained behaviors, standard operating procedures and habits can be incredibly hard to break, even after a person’s heart has been transformed. Every person who has felt the sting of their conscience after backsliding on a personal commitment understands this.
Even the most principled of history’s nonviolent advocates did not lead flawless movements filled with activists whose hearts were always in the right place, and none were able to transform all of the individuals around them. Which is not to say personal commitment to nonviolence should not be an objective or that Van Hook is wrong to argue for changing our hearts in the end. I’m just not so sure we must always start there.
Van Hook’s version of nonviolence is very personal in that it addresses transformation at the level of the individual human being, in a very existential sense. But the target for transformation in the people-power struggles around the world is, in most cases, the state or some other trans- or sub-national political entity. Such entities, for whom repression is status quo, will not likely be persuaded against using violence simply because they have been exposed to and saturated with the moral righteousness of principled nonviolence by earnest and loving activists. Such an approach assumes that violence is a force unto itself. But here, I throw in my lot with Hannah Arendt, who argued that violence is merely instrumental — a means to an end. And if violence is only a means (not a belief or an ideology or a force), then those who use it can be persuaded away from it when its use as a mechanism for social or political change is neutralized. When violence no longer has the ability to command fear or respect, it is no longer an effective tool. And bringing about this state of things is the ultimate objective of nonviolent strategy. Thus, ironically, I think Van Hook’s article actually represents a case for both more principle and more strategy, and — with a corrected understanding of strategic nonviolent action — makes the point that these two things are not distinct phenomena at all.
Finally, Van Hook’s article is constrained by its endorsement of an anarchist conceptualization of the state, in which the state is seen as intrinsically and necessarily violent. But what about the movements around the world that are fighting for democracy, civil rights and the rule of law? Most of today’s movements, in fact, seek not the elimination of the state but a healthy, well-functioning democracy that can correct the abusive use of violence by a repressive government. As these nonviolent people-power struggles continue to emerge and unfold around the world, activists need pragmatic tools — as well as philosophical ones — for addressing injustices perpetuated by tyrants. Pretending that the state does not or should not exist does little to help the activists in Burma or Egypt or Zimbabwe who need ways to wage their struggles without being arrested or abused by the (very real) state for the nth time.
At a presentation last month to international activists and journalists during the Fletcher Summer Institute for the Advanced Study of Nonviolent Conflict, U.S. civil rights veteran and Korean War resister Reverend James Lawson told the group about how strategy and planning were the keys to success in the Nashville sit-in campaign, which he helped lead. “I’m all for redemption and transformation of people,” he said. “I’m all for the enemy taking a different vision of himself and of his world. But I insist that while that is an important element, it is not the critical element of nonviolence.”
The critical element of nonviolent power, argued Lawson, is that it puts “a new agenda on the table.” In other words, the exercise of nonviolent power is its own best advocate. As it succeeds, it reduces the perceived efficacy of violence and offers empowering alternatives to the status quo — both at the level of society and in the lives of individuals taking part.
Great post, Cynthia! My favorite line is, “I believe that commitment to the principle can evolve from the action, which itself is a result of the strategy.” Amen, sister!
Readers might be interested in reading Stephanie Van Hook’s latest piece on WNV, in which she takes up a different critique of the strategic approach:
“Nonviolence implies commitment to a philosophy that eschews violence in all forms and that adheres to some key principles.”
Whoa! That is far too contentious to just baldly state–especially since so much of your argument rests on assuming it to be true.
When Gandhi, for example, spoke of nonviolence, he was talking about ahimsa–not a belief, but a virtue. (“It takes a fairly strenuous course of training to attain to a mental state of non-violence.”) For him, nonviolence no more requires a certain set of beliefs than does any other virtue–courage, or love, or generosity.
In English, we often use “nonviolence” to refer to what he would have called satyagraha, which, again, is not a philosophy. It is a practice. It requires certain commitments, yes, but that is no less true of strategic nonviolent action.
Even a brief look at Dr. King or Thich Nhat Hanh will reveal a similar take on nonviolence, not as a dogma, but as an internal state or a practice. (Hanh: “Nonviolence is not a dogma; it is a process.” King: “The nonviolent resister not only refuses to shoot his opponent but he also refuses to hate him.” Note–King does not mention needing to believe anything about your opponent, only a certain kind of behavior toward your opponent.)
It makes no sense to talk about nonviolence having a philosophical litmus test. If anything was notable about Gandhi’s efforts for Indian independence, it was the extraordinary diversity of beliefs among the members of his ashrams and the participants in his campaigns.
Nonviolence requires commitments that strategic nonviolent action does not. But the commitments strategic nonviolent action requires are very real. It is less demanding. That does not make it all-inclusive.
In both instances, whether or not you can participate is not about holding a certain set of beliefs about the universe (beyond “this is worth doing”). It’s about whether you’re ready to take up the practice.
What, for example, do you think are the differences between the demands required by strategic and principled nonviolent action? For instance, it is often suggested that managing anger is one such difference which would make strategic nonviolent action “easier” because it would be less demanding in that respect. But Boaz suggests that, in fact, a strategic approach might very well call participants to significant anger management:
What we see is that principled nonviolence asks of the person to cultivate nonviolence in thought, word and deed. It’s hard to do that, but it’s possible. It’s easier, in a way, to hold back from kicking someone when I want to, it’s not as easy not to utter a word that would harm them, or even want to think something negative about who that person “really” is. That is where principled nonviolence goes, strategic nonviolent action (or what I call strategic nonviolence) never points to nonviolence in thought, for instance. At least I have never seen it.
When continuous nonviolent action, taken even for instrumental reasons, is seen repetitively by the actor to be more effective than violent action in curbing an evil — such as racism embodied in laws, or exploitation by a military occupier — you can be sure that it will inhibit the reversion to violence as a default response. For the individual, the location for such a change is always in thought. Some people learn deductively from propositions that seem attractive to them. Others learn inductively from experience. The latter shouldn’t be regarded as inferior to the former.
This is very interesting, Jack. Can you point me to literature where this is discussed in further depth?
I think one important commitment distinguishing nonviolence from strategic nonviolent action is the commitment not to harm one’s opponent.
Gene Sharp is very clear in Waging Nonviolent Struggle: any action in which blows are not struck is an example of nonviolent struggle. He explicitly includes struggles where the intent was to suppress or drive out an ethnic group. One of those instances led not to a widespread understanding of the power of nonviolence, but to genocide.
Other examples of strategic nonviolent struggle include lots of what Bondurant called duragraha (as opposed to satyagraha): using any means short of beatings to hurt an opponent into doing our bidding. Think of your average strike: impose economic costs on the management until they give you what you’re demanding. That definitely requires courage and discipline. It doesn’t call for nonviolence.
The statement by Stephanie Van Hook, quoted above by Nathan Schneider, that “the strategic side [of “nonviolence”] does not want to touch emotions or ideals” is untrue as a matter of history. The conscious use of nonviolent action in a strategic manner, as I have examined it in many movements and campaigns, could not have been successful without broad popular mobilization, summoned typically by reference to the ideals as well as the interests of diverse people, who not only think about how to engage in nonviolent action so that it is effective but also feel that they must do so in an existential sense. Passion and principle thus join astute planning and discipline in the use of civil resistance to yield what we call “people power.”
Here’s one of a number of relevant examples. Lech Walesa, the leader of Solidarity in the occupation strikes that shut down Polish ports and forced the authoritarian regime in that country to legalize free trade unions in 1980, was a cold-eyed strategist who realized that pushing for maximum demands would have triggered repression and instead kept asking only for what he believed the regime might yield. It did, and Solidarity was legalized. But when repression came anyway 16 months later, and Lech Walesa was dragged away by the police, he screamed at them, “At this moment, you lost. We are arrested but you have driven a nail into your communist coffin…You’ll come back to us on your knees!”
That was not just a cry from the heart. He knew that repression can backfire on the state, and eight years later, the regime that had thrown him in jail came back to him and asked him to help negotiate a new political opening in Poland that led to its first free and fair elections and his own ascent to the presidency. How did he know that one day he would succeed? He understood that the only possible source of the state’s legitimacy and thus its ability to function was the consent of the people, the last vestiges of which the state had destroyed by imposing martial law. He couldn’t have understood that if he hadn’t grasped the strategic dynamic of the conflict in which he was engaged. But basing his action on that understanding didn’t at all indicate that he wasn’t capable of showing and summoning belief in the justice of his cause and the conviction that it would prevail, which can help give a movement resilience in the face of serious setbacks.
The evidence of history is incontrovertible: The great sundering of oppression that the strategic use of nonviolent action has engineered time and time again is accomplished in great part because movements that are strategically directed are able to harness the participation of millions, not only because leaders and participants are capable of exhibiting principle but also because they are capable of acquiring the skills necessary to wage a nonviolent conflict and practice the shrewd decision-making that victory requires.
Hi, Jack. Good point. I was referencing strategic nonviolent action in regard to the way it is defined in the literature, kind of a “just the ‘facts’ thank you very much” approach in the literature. Ideals, I meant, such as the ability to forgo humiliation of an opponent for one’s benefit, for example, or as an ideal to overcome hatred. We don’t “go there” in that literature.
Best, Stephanie
Great article, Cynthia. Hopefully I’m not beyond redemption.
Best wishes, Stephanie
What a great exchange! I would like to weigh in for now on just one point, but I think it’s central — maybe the Higgs boson of nonviolence theory. It surfaces in the reluctance of some of us to apply the word ‘nonviolence’ as a substantive in its own right, substituting ‘nonviolent (action or whatever).’ I don’t think this is only a semantic issue. I think it reflects what we respectively believe to be real. For me, nonviolence is a real force in nature (primarily human nature, but nature), that can be generated by acts, words, and thoughts, and that may even be an ascending order of potency though it’s certainly an ascending order of subtlety.
In this vein — I shouldn’t try to disagree with you about Arendt, Cyndi, but here goes — she did say “the practice of violence, like all action, changes the world…”, and for some people the capacity to change something is the definition of a force. Well, that one may be a quibble. But I think the main point I made isn’t.
Very much enjoying this exchange!
Warm regards,
Michael
Also: “an anarchist conceptualization of the state, in which the state is seen as intrinsically and necessarily violent.”
I am unaware of any conceptualization of the state in which it is not intrinsically and necessarily violent. If you wouldn’t mind sharing such a conceptualization, I’d be much obliged.
That violence may be common as a function of a democratic state’s law enforcement does not mean that it is necessary. That repressive violence is inevitable if the state is authoritarian does not mean that authoritarian rule cannot be dissolved (as it has been many times through nonviolent resistance). Violence by a democratic state is unnecessary because the legitimacy and viability of its rule require the freely provided consent of the people, which cannot be coerced under any form of threat, including that of violence. People do not obey the laws because they are afraid of punitive violence if they do not, and if that were true, the state would be illegitimate because it would not have won the people’s consent. Unless laws are unjust and resisted on that basis, they win public compliance because it’s understood that they are necessary to maintain order.
“People do not obey the laws because they are afraid of punitive violence if they do not, and if that were true, the state would be illegitimate because it would not have won the people’s consent. Unless laws are unjust and resisted on that basis, they win public compliance because it’s understood that they are necessary to maintain order.”
Do you have an example of a democracy that works on that basis?
Also: am I incorrect in thinking that this argument assumes that when people steal, they do so because they disagree that laws against stealing are just?
Jack,
Sounds like a syntactic ambiguity is in play.
Ideally, a legitimate government maintains power by consent of the people. The people select laws and leaders to enforce them, or at minimum the people select a framework for how new laws will be created, and how leaders should go about enforcing them. As such, violence may be necessarily employed to provide for the common defense, and the implicit assumption is that the government will not use violence for offensive purposes.
The ambiguity stems from “people” (singular and plural) versus “persons”. The People (singular) may come together and decide that stealing is unacceptable, and impose a penalty, precisely because one or two persons may feel otherwise and harm their fellow persons. If one person is making holes in the boat, he must be stopped for the survival of The People aboard, violently if necessary. He may not individually consent to being restrained or punished or coerced.
Just as a person has a right to self defense, so does a people. It does not require consent from the aggressor.
One of my earliest mentors, a Fellowship of Reconciliation staffer named Charles C. Walker, used to say, “Nonviolence is easier to do than to talk about.”
As someone who for half a century has had no problem having at the same time a Quaker pacifist’s moral commitment and a strategic nonviolent actionist’s theory and practice, I find Van Hook’s effort to polarize the two an example of Charlie’s observation.
If I could coach her in the actual movement context of a campaign with “the great unwashed” (i.e. non-card-carrying pacifists), I think she could discover the art, the practice, that headliners like Lucretia Mott and Dr. King and Barbara Deming and Chavez and Gandhi practiced for many many years.
It’s not as hard to do as it is to talk about. And those of us who like to do, will continue to find this particular polarization a needless distraction. Movements need intellectuals who are willing to act – that’s where the understanding comes. Come on in! The water’s fine.
Thanks, George, I’ll let you be my coach any day on nonviolent action: stephanie@mettacenter.org. Looking forward to collaborating.
I’d add to George’s characteristically apt comment: While nonviolent action is easier to do than to talk about, it’s getting easier to talk about — and teach and practice — because the inventory of cases to learn from continues to grow, including the strategic and tactical lessons they offer. There is enormous new creativity in this field right now, at the level of explanatory ideas as well as specific applications. We’re learning about the psychology of resilience in movements, the economics of nonviolent struggle, the relationship between indigenous action and external assistance, and many other dimensions of struggle. Given the quickening uptake of nonviolent resistance around the world, this improvement in learning is welcome and timely.
I have noticed over the years that there appears to be three categories of non-violence.
1) Personal non-violence: for whatever reasons an individual has chosen to do no violence against others.
2) Moral non-violence: often a religious or spiritual decision to do no violence in the hope of creating a non-violent world.
3) Strategic non-violence: a method of achieving large social/political goals using an absolutely consistent method of non-violent actions.
Recently, Ruckus, Tools for Change, the authors of Beautiful Trouble, and others have started describing Strategic Non-Violence as a tactic. I would have thought the difference was obvious; Strategic Non-Violence is a STRATEGY. (See Gene Sharp for details.)
Strategic non-violence can’t be turned on or off depending on the response by the state, or by who turns up. Ideally, any organizations and organizers wishing to adhere to strategic non-violence would clearly and publicly label their actions as non-violent beforehand, so that there’s no misunderstanding (with the police or the anarchists). Recently in Quebec, the demonstrations were separated between daytime (non-violent), and night (violent).
There are many personal choices we will need to make about non-violence, many of them noted above. But let’s at least be clear about the difference between a tactic and a strategy.
In friendship.
I would actually tend to think of strategic nonviolence as not a strategy but a framework. A campaign or movement should be able to employ several different kinds of strategies, with many different tactics within those. But strategic nonviolence tends to work best when it is not mixed with a violent (radical flank) — as Chenoweth and Shock’s recent research has shown. Therefore, it really should be an over-arching framework for thinking about how various strategies and tactics might operate. I would also classify, for instance, “diversity of tactics” as a framework — and not necessarily one in conflict with strategic nonviolence.
As the person who wrote the “nonviolent discipline” chapter in Beautiful Trouble, I was a bit unnerved by the idea that nonviolent struggle was simply one method in their toolbox, rather than an overriding framework of resistance. But that was the choice the editors made.
Once again, we should also be cautious about assuming anarchists are not nonviolent. As Boaz points out, in fact, Van Hook’s “principled nonviolence” is laced with anarchist thinking.
Perhaps because you see it as a “framework” rather than a “strategy” you can somehow incorporate “diversity of tactics” into the process. I consider “diversity of tactics” to be one of the most ingenious ideas being used to destroy movements since I started along this road (the 60s). The Occupiers used it because they had no principles to guide their decisions (strategy).
My experience with anarchists here in Canada has been totally predictable; nice people, great parties, but always see the solution through the lens of violence (similar to the Marxist-Leninists). The ones who can channel their anger through theatre or music are the admirable exceptions.
Along with the editors, I would consider “nonviolent struggle” as a tactic subject to individual interpretation and application. It’s only when it’s used as a “strategy” that the power of the idea becomes clear.
I look forward to the revised edition.
In friendship.
Gerry,
I tend to see —
Nonviolent Heart: The notion that if something is wrong, I will courageously not comply rather than fighting back.
Nonviolent Strategy: Fomenting a movement based on the underlying theory that wrongful coercion is ultimately impossible to enforce without cooperation, and removing that cooperation to end the coercion. Works on a cultural level.
Nonviolent Behavior: Doing the deed nonviolently. Note the difference from nonaggression. A nonviolent march or sit-in can be quite aggressive. The nonviolent behavior supports a nonviolent strategic framework, regardless of individual moral underpinnings.
Hi everyone,
I have now read through all the comments carefully. I think the discussion has been useful, but there are still some patches where we’re not understanding one another’s position clearly, and in some cases substituting stereotypes, or at least unwarranted assumptions, for real listening. We all seem to be in agreement that an activist can enter into a nonviolent struggle because it’s the only game in town and come to be impressed by the effectiveness of the method while struggling — which is great. We also agree — though some think that those in the principled camp like Stephanie and myself do not — that there is nothing whatever wrong with strategy. Success is unthinkable without it, and Gandhi, the paragon of what’s misleadingly called Principled NV, was one of the greatest strategists of all time.
The difference lies is what has to go on IN ADDITION TO strategy. Here there are some misunderstandings that can be cleared up. I don’t believe, for example, that Stephanie means we ‘have to’ undergo a change of heart before we can rightfully enter a struggle; in fact, I’m sure she does not and did not want to imply that. Rather, that while you CAN struggle only to remove an opponent, without regard for her or his welfare, you can also struggle WITH that kind of concern AND — and this may be really where the disagreement, if any lies — it is more effective to do so, especially in the long run. The less than satisfactory aftermath of many a nonviolent transition to democracy may well be due, in this view, to the failure to discriminate between the “sin and the sinner,” the opponent and his deed or program, and the related failure to undertake constructive program along with the resistance — constr. prog. of a type that would prepare the institutions to take over from the dislodged regime. So, the term “moral” is really misleading nowadays, and even the world “principle” can sound abstract and philosophical, which is not what we’re really after: it’s the belief, or vision, in the principled camp that forces deep in consciousness affect the outcomes of our actions more than we realize. So it makes sense to attend to those forces IN ADDITION TO all due strategic considerations.
Tony Jenkins of the National Peace Academy has proposed that some of us join together for a tele seminar on this issue. If you’re interested, watch for that this fall, and for a webinar sooner on our website (Mettacenter[dot]org).
Warm regards,
Michael Nagler
Thanks so much, Michael, for the distinctions. What you say makes me fantasize about some Chenoweth/Stephan-style study — were such a thing even possible — comparing the relative effectiveness of nonviolence movements that had in them a deep sense of principle about their tactics and portrayal of opponents, in contrast to those who didn’t.
Again, though, given how Cyndi approaches the question of what’s strategic — taking into account the fact that showing lots of anger might not be strategic — it actually seems like, by her own reasoning, maybe a change of heart is actually necessary for purely strategic reasons to build a really effective strategic campaign! Which, I imagine, is part of why she rightly refuses to label herself as either principled or strategic in her approach to nonviolent action, rather than inevitably both.
Yes.
While we’re taking it down, we must be building our Vision. I had hopes that a Social Forum process could be a way to begin this process.
(Also see the Port Huron Statement.)
In Friendship
Hello Michael et al,
I too am appreciative of this dialogue, and want to thank Stephanie and Cynthia for initiating it. I’m writing here not to comment directly on the strategic/principled (non?)-dichotomy, but to respond to the idea that Mohandas Gandhi is, or should be regarded as, “the paragon” of nonviolence.
Gandhi’s roles in mobilizing nonviolent movements, developing nonviolent thought, and popularizing nonviolent struggle worldwide is vital and I hope I’ll continue learning from it for my lifetime. At the same time, I think portraying anyone as a saint is both dehumanizing (and thus, a form of violence in itself) and strategically destructive, because such distancing implies that only super-human people can strive nonviolently for a better world.
In particular, Gandhi’s racism, misogyny, sexual abuse of girls, dictatorial style within movements he lead, and his support for wars (among other issues) were all, I believe, quite violent. When I edited a special issue of Peacework magazine on 100 years of Gandhian nonviolent action (please see http://www.peaceworkmagazine.org/issue-368-september-2006), I wrote a brief piece entitled, “A Pacifist Critique of Gandhi” to document some of these issues (please see http://www.peaceworkmagazine.org/pacifist-critique-gandhi), and an editorial to attempt to contextualize my effort to understand some of Gandhi’s complicated and profound legacies (http://www.peaceworkmagazine.org/editors-desk-special-issue-100-years-gandhian-nonviolent-action).
I hope we continue to learn from Gandhi’s life, philosophies, and struggles. I believe we can learn more effectively by analyzing how complicated these legacies are.
As an old philosophy major I appreciate a good theoretical discussion like this as much as anyone. It however, needs more grounding in the real consequences of the practice of non-violent strategy – particularly when it is effective. And particularly when it is effective against a regime that has few if any moral reservations against using extreme violence as a counter strategy. The more effective a nonviolent strategy is the more likely it will provoke a violent response. This piece does not address what happens when nonviolent transformational change results in horrendous, if one-sided, violence. When that violence is directed at family, friends and comrades, it can sorely test a person and movement’s commitment to strategic nonviolence – even if they are keenly aware that it is being effective. One reason that Gandhi’s nonviolent strategy was successful was that the British had moral limits on the use of violence. The same might be said for the Polish communist regime.
That is why, reason and intellect are poor substitutes for heartfelt and principled nonviolence when it comes to the practice of nonviolent strategy in the face of extreme violence. Carrying out a nonviolent strategy in the face of a regime that has few if any limits on the violence it is willing to use is far more difficult than resorting to armed struggle. Far more difficult than we might imagine. The practice of violence is actually quite easy and straightforward. Practicing nonviolence – especially in the face of extreme counter violence – is complicated and fraught with moral gray areas. In these cases, what actions to take and even what responses are nonviolent are not always clear. Without a strong and principled moral commitment to nonviolence, it is our emotions rather than our reason that is likely to govern our actions.
A few unrelated responses to this:
1. To the extent your comment about ‘moral limits on the use of violence’ is true (and it has been extensively disputed), it demonstrates smart strategy, not a limitation on nonviolence. I doubt the same ‘moral limits’ would have been present had Indians and Poles taken up guns.
2. The movements that have succeeded against extremely ruthless opponents have generally had LESS explicit commitment to ‘principled nonviolence’.
3. No movement in history has been entirely made up of people committed to principled nonviolence.
4. The corollary to (3) is that nobody (or very few people) engaged in ‘strategic nonviolent conflict’ would rather be killing people. The vast majority of people in the world do not seek to be violent people. Thus the distinction, while academically useful, can be somewhat overstated (h/t Kurt Schock).
I would like to suggest another way of looking at this issue, beyond the one dimensional focus on violence/non-violence. I say we have to do the personal homework before taking social action but the homework is in matters above and beyond violence/non-violence.
Violence of itself is not evil – is a crocodile, shark or lion evil? I don’t think so. Human violence is always a consequence, a symptom of something else. Politically, it might be a symptom of imperialism, colonisation, racism and patriarchy. Personally it might be a symptom of victimhood, frustration or prior trauma. The cause of the violence, and therefore the solution to the violence, does not lie in the issue of violence itself but in other factors. It is these other factors that require attention but the white middle class philosophical non-violence movement tends to regard the “other” issues as secondary or irrelevant to a focus on violence/non-violence.
Mahatma Ghandi and Rev. Dr. King, the two most famous figureheads of the white middle class philosophical non-violence movements, were both black men fighting against white racism and colonisation, this was their primary struggle. In both cases non-violence was just a means to an end – a morally coherent means but none the less a means. The goal was freedom from racism, poverty and domination. It was this vision of liberation that attracted followers and activists and supporters, not a moral attraction to non-violence.
A non-violence activist, a christian missionary, a social welfare worker, a politician or a development banker may appoint themselves advocates of the poor and oppressed and engage in social action on that basis. Even if these people do their personal homework and address the philosophical implications of their social role in their own personal lives and align their inner spirituality and psychology with that role, they are still willingly performing a role of hierarchical domination and perpetuating illusions of the dominant, privileged paradigm.
I say, white middle class political activists (non-violent or otherwise) need to look deep inside ourselves to see our internalised traits of racism, cultural domination and privilege, not just our own violence. This involves a massive psychological transformation, much bigger than simply abandoning aggression and coercion.
The question is not just how we conduct ourselves non-violently in our social role but our analysis must also deeply question our social role itself – before we energise and animate that social role.
The terminology of non-violence speaks of our “opponent”. This terminology came from Ghandi’s campaign where the opponent was British colonial society. Similarly the opponent of the US black civil rights movement was white America. The non-violence campaigns were designed to transform the opponent which was very much an “other” to the oppressed masses of American and Indian black people. However for white middle class peace activists the dynamic is a bit different. The title of the above article refers to “throwing off our chains” but this is a fairly shallow concept when compared to the real chains of oppression that the poor and dispossessed are caged by, it is just a poetic concept to describe our own anxiety rather than real oppression of the sort Ghandi and MLK were born into.
It is our society and culture from which we are privileged that is the opponent, we ourselves are the opponent – and this is where self reflection of our social role is very important.
The struggle for justice must begin in our own consciousness before we design any social campaign, otherwise we are just adding colour and variety within the dominant paradigm rather than challenging it at its core.
John,
However silken our chains may be, chains they are nonetheless. For an upper-crust white American, it might be disingenuous to talk about our mutual oppression. But for the rest of us, we are encumbered unjustly.
There is corruption and collusion between The Government and big business. It oppresses when it chokes out smaller companies without true competition because they can’t afford to fight back. It oppresses when it installs CallerIQ on your phone, and logs where you drive, just in case you might decide to be up to no good later. It oppresses when it uses the free market economy as an excuse to deny food or medical care where no true scarcity exists. It oppresses when it takes away money you’ve earned out of each paycheck, not to build schools or bridges or fight fires, but to hand to a financier. And it oppresses when it tries to silence those who cause embarrassment.
Some rights are endowed, and some are earned. I have the right to care for my tiny family if I’m willing to work for it, and this right is being denied. I have the right to report wrongdoing, and this right is tenuous at best. I have the right to privacy. This right has been eviscerated and killed. I have the right to not be harmed by my fellow man nor government. No such luck.
However you want to characterize it, whatever label it gets, these are the civil rights that need the chains to be thrown off. It’s not a matter of nuance. Ultimately, it’s a matter of being able to live ones life.
Can I just say I am greatly enjoying sitting in this virtual room at the feet of so many wise people. This is a fantastic discussion.
Satyagraha works when we say: “I know that is wrong. I may be punished for disobeying, but I will not volunteer to do what I know is wrong.”
Today, for the first time, I “opted out” of a TSA electronic strip search, tantamount to “opting in” for a pat-down. I’m glad I did.
I must refuse to lower my head in fear when confronted with injustice. Ironically, this is something I first realized reading Atlas Shrugged. A little self-harm out of fear is far worse than risking great harm at someone else’s hand. With wrongful obedience, I’m actually oppressing myself. This is at the heart of nonviolent mindset.
Nonviolent action works independently of mindset because injustice requires broad cooperation. There is an implied tipping point beyond which carrying out threats and making examples is simply too difficult or expensive for the oppressor.
My little trip through TSA required two agents and a private screening room. I was not an example to encourage others to take a stand. But I was also not an example of quietly submitting to humiliation. And the request for a private room precipitates the need for a second agent.
The screening took about five minutes for the first agent, then about fifteen minutes for the pair. 35 man-minutes, as it were, in total. I’m not sure what agents are making, but for this area, $20 per hour is reasonable. My calm, polite refusal to get microwaved didn’t cause me to miss the flight, and cost the TSA about $12.
This may seem paltry, but consider the 730 million domestic US passenger flights for 2011. If one in eight passengers refused electronic strip searches, it could easily cost a billion dollars in direct labor hours. And imagine all of the odd adjustments that would have to be made to provide private screening rooms at that volume. And the extra employees required to conduct the searches? They all need managers, and health insurance, and rubber gloves, and potty breaks. A figure of $2 billion isn’t unrealistic, just from an eighth of passengers insisting on enhanced, private frisking. A third of passengers could easily run the number up to $6 billion.
To put it in perspective, the entire budget of the TSA for 2011 was a little over $8 billion for equipment, personnel, the works. It absolutely relies on cooperation for the injustice to be possible. Faced with civil disobedience, a national security apparatus would be forced, like any corporation, to make evidence-based decisions, to prioritize efforts, and to focus on ways to fulfill a mission of making us all safer, rather than whatever it is they’re actually doing. Establishing dominance, perhaps?
I realize this smacks of sabotage, sedition, and anarchy on its face, but just as a compass comes about to point North, satyagraha works precisely by acknowledging the underlying principles of how the Universe is oriented. In true anarchy, oppression and kindness would carry equal cost and equal reward. But in this world, true nonviolence carries immense power. With a single stroke it can make injustice an incredibly costly enterprise.
Furthermore, we are primates at the end of the day, and violent action is easier with a violent partner. Concentration camps are the exception. Violent overthrow is the rule. Nonviolent action casts injustice into stark relief, and will begin to win the battle of perception, a battle is fought not only in the hearts of foot-soldiers, but passive noncombatants and outside onlookers as well. If the police shoot a man visibly waving a gun, there may be debate. But if they shoot at someone seated quietly, there will be uproar.
A heart of nonviolence seeks to behave in a manner consistent with certain courageous and self-respecting ethical principles while a broader action would grow out of cultural mindset and practice. One may achieve nonviolence personally as an end, while nonviolent action is a means to achieve an end of greater good.
Either way, satyagraha works when we say: “I know that is wrong. I may be punished for disobeying, but I will not volunteer to do what I know is wrong.”