Thoughts on Non-Violence

Social proof, that is what it all comes down to. Without a significant number of people believing something, it isn't going to happen. Non-violence needs more social proof to be seen as a mainstream solution. Luckily, even the under-developed ideas that currently constitute non-violent thought show how powerful it can be at creating social proof.

The best way to do this is to develop a body of knowledge on how non-violence works, as well as a group of people to go around and exercise these methods. It is only in acting on these ideas and principles in a very public way that we can prove their effectiveness. So, we need to both develop an institute to study the subject (already a few in existence!) and a systematic group to practice and refine methods. There are plenty of groups using non-violence out there, but they do not do it systematically and experimentally, nor do they take meticulous notes on it. Non-violent Peaceforce comes as close to this as I have seen. As much as I love them (they are friggin' amazing!) I wish they would put more effort into smaller scale trainings that would empower locals to fight their own battles as well as be part of the NP network. While I totally dig their interventions in the Phillipines and Sri Lanka, I think there is so much more potential than only in those two places. I want something with the capacity to train thousands in the U.S. every year.

I also think that NP focuses too much on peacekeeping as a third party activity. Part of what makes non-violence so powerful is employing it to fight a conflict, not just as a third party peacekeeper. I want to prove to the public that we can fight and win a war non-violently. And to do that, I think it will take thousands of people across the country using non-violent techniques against violent attackers and winning... and making the point that the only reason they won was because of the use of non-violence.

I will give some examples of what I have in mind... I want an organization that can train:
Unions to be more effective at their struggles.
Groups fighting for civil rights issues (racism, sexism, homophobia)
Poverty fighters
College activists
Copwatches - I want them to have the legal authority to intervene if a police officer is doing something illegal, and they will have to win that.
Environmental activists.
People to deal with day to day conflicts in their own lives...
The list could go on for awhile.

I want to help develop an alternative to the violent military and something that can win against the military-industrial complex. I want to disabuse the global public of its infatuation with and belief in violence. I want to give the movement a weapon more effective than violence so that we can transform this world.

Violence by the Oppressed

A typical pro-violence argument that I have heard is that some people are so oppressed that violence is their only option.  But the trend is that the size of the violent apparatus used in oppression is directly proportional to the degree of oppression.  So, for the most oppressed people, they would have the largest odds against their success in their violent struggle.  

I recently read Fredrick Douglass's autobiography (which is really amazing, btw).  And in it, he describes how at the age of 16 after a grueling 6 months under a devious, cold-hearted and brutal overseer he felt that his will was almost completely broken.  After one particularly bad beating, he fled 7 miles back to his master to ask for protection.  He received none.  On his way back to face his punishment for fleeing, he met up with another slave who gave him a root.  This root, the man said, would protect him from being beaten.  When Douglass returned he was confronted by the overseer, he decided that he was not going to be beaten again and fought back.  After what sounded like an epic 2 hour fight, the overseer finally gave up.  But the way he gave up was by saying something like "well, I didn't want to have to beat you so bad.  maybe next time you will think twice before disobeying me" and walked off.  He did not concede defeat, but he did not really win.  Douglass said the next 6 months were much less oppressive since he had won the respect of his overseer.  But, there were several other factors contributing to preventing Douglass simply being shot outright (something which he described happening to other people who resisted the way Douglass did).  The overseer had a reputation for breaking slaves, something he did not want to tarnish by either killing Douglass, or calling for help from other white people or the law.

Now, most would say that Douglass could have done nothing other than fight back violently. But in most cases when slaves did that were summarily killed, even according to Douglass who thought he was sure to die by fighting back.  Douglass recounts how in his child a man who simply refused to move was shot in the head.  Slaves who hit back were either instantly killed, or automatically shipped off and sold.  This does not seem to be an environment where violence is an effective strategy.  It is more likely to get one killed than anything else.  In fact, I would argue that Douglass's other activities were the most productive in fighting against slavery.

Douglass managed, in his childhood, to learn to read and write (mostly from white street urchins).  He started teaching this skill to his fellow slaves.  Lack of education was a key tool used to oppress slaves, so by spreading his knowledge he was directly undermining slavery.  He also spread his outlook and really had an immense impact on the lives of the slaves around him.  He planned escapes and finally succeeded.  After his escape, he wrote his book, which was widely read and has now achieved "classic" status.  His main contributions to ending slavery were not his violent altercations which could have easily ended with his death, but his spreading ideas and knowledge.  Changing people's minds is where the real power is.  If these minds had not been swayed, Britian and the rest of Europe would never have ended slavery.  And the civil war (one of the only instances where the end of slavery was accompanied by widespread violence) would never have happened.  The 13th amendment was passed because enough people thought slavery was evil.  A big part of that was because of publications such as the Liberator and Douglass's autobiography that exposed the fangs of the beast.  By making the violence of the system against unarmed people public knowledge, people's minds were changed.  No slave revolt could ever accomplish that.   

The Futility of Violence

Over the decade of contemplating the issue, I have really come to see violence as futile.  (I would like to make a distinction here, violence is completely different than resistance and force.  Both of which can be done more effectively without using violence).

  

The state has a monopoly on violence, and holy crap, do they exploit that monopoly.  They can easily harm and kill thousands without taking a single causality.  Their tactics have been refined over 5000 years of testing, and they have a institutional research infrastructure second to none.  Even from a violent standpoint the military and police arm of the government is so vast and so effective at violence that it is pointless to hit back.   Many may despair at the armies arrayed against the forces of social justice.  Not I.  For they may have the homefield advantage when it comes to violence, but they are so constricted and captured by the idea of violence that they are unable to fight any other way.  They are a prisoner of their own beliefs.  

By believing that violence is the only way to force people to do things, believing that it is the most powerful force known, and believing that it is, with all things considered, effective, is the key weakness that will allow non-violent resistance to triumph.  Non-violence performs a kind of ideological jujitsu on violence.  It turns what violence believes to be its greatest strength into its greatest weakness.  

Lets see, how to put this.  By committing acts of violence, people make themselves targets for the state to oppress.  The state's monopoly on violence is so ingrained in our society that when violence is committed by anyone else, that person automatically loses the moral high ground in the eyes of the public.  They are seen as a danger to the public, justifying the use of violence against them by the state, in the eyes of the public.  That is the typical scenario violent revolutions face.  Non-violent revolutions, however, totally throw off all the government's preconceived notions of conflict.  

How do you fight people who refuse to comply and refuse to respond violently?  With even partially effective politicking they can maintain the moral high ground against the government, making any violent sortie against them publicly deplorable.  They can non-violently provoke violence from the state in such a way that will undermine the population's belief in state supremacy.  Non-violence uses the violence of an oppressor to undermine their legitimacy. Turning their weapons into liabilities, and their attempted oppression into a PR disaster.  

A non-violent army would be 100x as effective as a violent one.  Imagine if we poured 200,000 unarmed people into our enemies' country?  What would they do?  What could they do?  They could try to kill them, but this would only cause them to lose prestige and support.  They could try to imprison them, but there are not enough prisons to hold them.  Deport them, they just come back.  Confine them and they will drain resources and sneak out.  Leave them alone and they will convert your population.  It is a lose/lose situation for a government.  None of their usual tools of control work against non-violence, and they are left utterly frustrated and stumped as to how to effectively fight back.  

There are some caveats to non-violence, however.  The cause has to be just, or one cannot maintain the moral high ground which is essential to victory.  The means have to be compatible with the end which is sought.  The people have to believe they are doing the right thing.  And, like anything else, it has to be organized, media-saavy, financially supported, and be able to maintain a certain base of support. 

So, this has been my most recent addition to the violence/non-violence debate.  As pre my previous post, I tried to write it in a non-competitive way that would not cause people who believe in violence to dig in their heels. 

The Violence vs. Non-Violence Debate

Wow, I haven't posted in awhile.  Oh well, I will try to make up for it.  

The debate over violence in the left gets pretty ridiculous sometimes, and has been the cause of way too many hurt feelings and splits.  It may seem like a fruitless debate, because there will not be consensus on the issue in the foreseeable future, but I think it is still important to have.  It can be a lesson in how to treat people who disagree with us.  If open to the lesson, one can learn a great deal about how to approach people and try to change their minds.  Analyzing their world-view and beliefs, one can practice adapting arguments to fit the target.  The real challenge in these discussions is not proving the other party wrong, but disarming them and planting the seed of one's idea.

Too many egotistical lefties just want to prove the other side wrong.  It is understandable, it is a nice ego boost to "win" an enraged argument.  But it is not likely to get the opposing party to change their mind.  It is more likely to get them to dig in their heels and refuse to concede.  It becomes a contest, and that is just counter-productive.  Playing verbal jujitsu is necessary to escape this trap.  Do not frame the discussion as a contest of who is right and who is wrong, switch the frame to something that is non-competitive, whatever form of that which is appropriate for the discussion.  

This is particularly hard to do since the American way of speaking, especially the male and academic ways of discussion are often framed as contests.  It has even been hard for me to come up with an example of a different way to frame a discussion.  In fact, I would deem this a great oppression, in a most Orwellian sense, in that our very manner of speaking has been corrupted to such an extent as to limit our capacity to imagine alternatives.

I wish the proponents of non-violence would take this tack on their discussions.  It is far more compatible with the style of non-violence than that of violence, plus I am definitively on the side of non-violence and would like to see the idea win more hearts and minds.