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.   

Love 2: Conquering Death

Building on the last post, I think that our culture's pernicious fear of death comes from our lack of embracing love. For, if we truly love, then we do not see ourselves as a sea of individuals but as a single ocean. A hand with fingers as opposed to separate fingers. As one cell among trillions in a multi-cellular. If I claimed that each of my cells was independent from the other cells, people would call me crazy. But, they are as independent of each other as humans are from each other and the rest of our environment. The fact that we do not see that is but a cultural blindfold.

Love is our cellular bond. It is what drives people to see themselves not as one individual that has a finite existence, but as part of a community that has existed for millions of years, and will be around when everyone we know is long gone. If we see ourselves this way, we do not fear our own death. Our identity is vested in something immortal instead of in our flesh and blood.

Accounts I have heard from soldiers, rescue personel, police and fire fighters makes me think that their subcultures are closer to achieving this than most of Western culture. Their job is to protect and help others (debatable how well the violent ones achieve that, but that discussion is for another day; the point is they see this as their job). They have embraced a love of their community and are willing to sacrafice their lives for others.

Now, this is not to say that people should not fear immediate dangers to their well-being. What I am talking about is the philisophical fear of death that makes people wish for immortality. It is this fear that caused people to develop the idea of an after-life; as an attempt to quell the thought of non-existance.

I remember when I was in middle school, I was deeply troubled by the thought of death, and I never found the idea of an after-life all that credible. Years of contemplation followed and slowly transformed into my attempts to explain the universe. I did really like the idea that heaven existed and it would be this paradise with all my loved ones, like one giant endless party. It would be pretty nice, but it felt wrong. It felt like false hope. This triggered a thought in my head that is very hard to put into words. I started to question the very idea that I was a singular unit. The idea of a soul, of an individual, of a person, is singularity. I was told by my culture that we are a single static being with neat boundaries and a single soul. My whole world came crashing down, slowly at first, while I still didn't realize that I was breaking down the foundational belief our cultural point of view is built upon. That is bound to have a tumultuous effect on one's mind. So sophmore year of high school was kind of rough.

Reality pushed me to see myself as something dynamic. The following is a summation of several years of contemplation from my adolecense: "I was certainly bigger than I used to be, and generally calmer. I have changed over time... I am not static. My cells turn-over at a fairly fast rate, I intake and expell lots of material. I am greatly affected by everything happening around me, absorbing ideas and behavioral patterns from other people. Maybe the boundaries of my individuality are not so clear cut as they are made out to be. I am as dependent on them for food, shelter, protection and love as the cells of my body are to each other. All this conflicts with the idea of a person having one soul. Why should each cell not have a soul, and I am just a conglomeration of the souls of my cells?" And that last question did it. BAM! My concept of individuality was in ruins and I was left a directionless 14-15 year old. But the seeds of my new framework were there. The best way I can put what I have settled on is: that I am but one small section of strata of a continum from the small to the large in the oneness of everything and everyone. And, without love to glue it all together, none of us would exist. Embracing love has allowed me the contentment of knowing that death is just a reordering of my strata, not the end all be all; I will still be around, because there is no destroying the unity that I find myself to be a part of.

This old saying is true in so many ways:
"Love is truly the only way to conquer death"