What follows is the first part in our three part series on how the principles of nonviolence bring about positive, meaningful change for society and can help us to finally arrive at that every elusive “better tomorrow” that has always been promised by those in power but which has never actually manifested.
You can find Part 2: Changing the Government here and Part 3: The Way to Tomorrow here.
American society is in convulsions right now. The murder of George Floyd sparked a series of mass protests and riots that have spread across country and even inspired like-minded ones in other countries. The people are joined in a grassroots rebellion against local and national authority, reviling both against the police and the military with equal fervency. The State (i.e. the government), using the only tactic it knows, has launched a massive assault on the people of the United States as a whole and has, by its actions, placed itself in a state of war with the American people. In doing so, the true nature of the State has been revealed, the mask has been torn away and the government stands naked as the brutal machinery for oligarchy, theft, and oppression that it is and always has been. The chaos in the streets is simply the natural result, the final, pure product of the State.
As people stare at the breakdown of society that is the final outcome of the State, many are asking hard questions about the future. They want to know where do we go from here and how do we get there. And it is in this that we see the divide. Everyone wants the same goals- a better, more prosperous, and fruitful society for all. The gulf between the two sides is based less on a difference in goals and more about how they respond to their fears. In both cases, the only solution they know is based on the very source of all the problems. Those calling for police crackdowns are responding to the conditioning of the State that has taught them their entire lives that the police are there to protect you and that if you are in danger you should call the police. Those marching in the streets are wanting to seize the levers of power for themselves and turn the machinery of control to their own devices and enforce their beliefs through the violence of the State. In doing so both side perpetuate a deadly error and make a fatal mistake in that they look to the very thing that has wrought so much destruction to be their Savior. But this will never work.
Not the least reason this will never work is because violence is a game that the State excels at playing. Violence is the State’s game. It exists to sow discontent, hatred, and malice between the various members of society, to set them at odds with one another, and to reap the rewards of wealth and power it can extort from the people by presenting itself as the solution to the ills it either entirely creates or exacerbates beyond measure. As I’ve explained more in depth elsewhere, through the instrumentalities of taxation and the legal system those in power set up an endless War of All Against All, whereby those who would naturally have no conflict are brought into political, social, and often literal, combat by the State, who then uses this violence as evidence that it must needs exist in order to dominate the people for the “common safety and common good.” This fresh round of violence will only be co-opted to prove that the state is needed now more than ever before. If we are going to counter the State’s evils we have to divest ourselves of its methods, we have to stop doing what justifies its very existence. We have to embrace nonviolence.
Nonviolence
Don’t react violently against the one who is evil
(Matthew 5:39)
The entire Myth of the State is based on the methods of violence- that violence justifies violence in return. So if you want to undermine the actions of the State you have to undermine that which gives it the power it has and by doing so you steal from it not only its justification, but its power. When these are taken from it, the States’s disguise is ripped away and instead of Protector its true identity as Oppressor is revealed. Said simply, it is easy for the propagandists of the government to make a man defending himself against the police look like he is the aggressor, therefore justifying the violence and brutality of the police in the first place. Actually being the aggressor is just doing their work for them.
When they cannot paint you as the aggressor, when there is no way for them to portray you as a violent criminal or thug because you refuse to engage in violence, then there is no way for them to justify their brutality. The thing that set so many off about the murder of George Floyd was exactly that he was not resisting. Not only could he not fight back, he wasn’t fighting back, and never had fought back. So, when they murdered him, it ripped away the masks of the police and revealing them for the militarized thugs that they truly are. And people reacted powerfully to that image, millions rose in open rebellion to the State and its enforcers exactly because of that power. This is the power of nonviolence.
The nonviolent activist allows his body, her pain, and their suffering to be the vehicle of the message of peace and revelation. Revelation in that the truth of the brutality is revealed. Peace because once this brutality is revealed people turn against it and seek to create a better way, a way that eliminates the revealed evil, which carries us forward on the path of peace to reconciliation. As Mahatma Gandhi explained:
Suffering is infinitely more powerful than the law of the jungle for converting the opponent and opening his ears, which are otherwise shut, to the voice of reason. Nobody has probably drawn up more petitions or espoused more forlorn causes than I, and I have come to this fundamental conclusion that, if you want something really important to be done, you must not merely satisfy the reason, you must move the heart also. The appeal of reason is more to the head, but the penetration of the heart comes from suffering. It opens up the inner understanding in man. Suffering is the badge of the human race, not the sword.
Humans are powerfully emotional creatures and often no matter how factual your argument is – no matter how you can manipulate the data to make your side seem to be the one best supported by the evidence- it is the emotional argument that wins hearts and therefore wins the day. Gandhi knew this nearly a century ago and nonviolence was how he took advantage of this truth to win supporters to his cause. If we want to win supporters to our cause we must do the same. We must renounce our own violence, therefore robbing the police and the State of its justification propaganda. And we must be willing to suffer. If we accept the violence of the State without being violent in return our suffering under the whip and rod of oppression it will expose the evils of their actions and open people’s hearts to our message and convert them to our cause.
Noncompliance
But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. (Matthew 5:39)
The purpose of violence is terrorism. It really is that simple. There is no fundamental difference between a growling dog and a person brandishing a club or a gun other than the latter walks erectly and has opposable thumbs. The purpose of each action is the same- to terrorize the one being threatened with violence to do what the one threatening violence demands be done. In short- “Do what I say or suffer!” The State is therefore a terrorist organization. Because it is based on violence and it uses violence or the threat of violence to compel obedience from the public, the government uses the fear of it and its power to maintain control of society. That is, the government uses terrorism to control the public. Thus, the State is a terrorist organization.
Some will disagree with this arguing that their goal is to protect their home, property, or family. The likewise would argue that the government’s goal is to protect the community, whether that be the local community or national one. But to confess this is to concede the point. The government is a terrorist organization that can only “solve” the problems of society by the use of blunt force violence or the fear of it that their power inspires. Is that truly any different than the dog’s motivations when it barks and bites? Is it not also “protecting” its territory and its pups when it snaps and snarls at those it dislikes? Humans are never more animalistic than when using violence to secure their goals. As Gandhi said:
I am not a visionary. I claim to be a practical idealist. The religion of nonviolence is not meant merely for the Rishis and saints. It is meant for the common people as well. Nonviolence is the law of our species as violence is the law of the brute. The spirit lies dormant in the brute and he knows no law but that of physical might. The dignity of man requires obedience to a higher law to the strength of the spirit.
I have therefore ventured to place before India the ancient law of self sacrifice. For Satyagraha and its off-shoots, non-co-operation and civil resistance, are nothing but new names for the law of suffering. The Rishis, who discovered the law of nonviolence in the midst of nonviolence, were greater geniuses than Newton. They were themselves greater warriors than Wellington. Having themselves known the use of arms, they realized their uselessness and taught a weary world that its salvation lay not through violence but through nonviolence.
Nonviolence in its dynamic condition means conscious suffering. It does not mean meek submission to the will of the evil-doer, but it means the putting of one’s whole soul against the will of the tyrant. Working under this law of being, it is possible for a single individual to defy the whole might of an unjust empire to save his honor, his religion, his soul and lay the foundation for the empire’s fall or its regeneration.
Gandhi starts off by dispelling the idea that nonviolence is utopian in nature. Of course, it isn’t. It is in fact eminently practical as the only means by which to bring true and lasting change to a society by transforming the hearts of the people within it. Easy? No. Effective? Absolutely. And, of course, compared to violence, far more successful. Then he goes on to make the distinction discussed in the previous article, The Importance of Nonviolence. When we engage in animalistic behavior -violence- we degrade our humanity to the level of brute animals. We dehumanize ourselves. But we are not animals. As humans we are so much more than animals and are therefore capable of so much more than acting as animals in order to “solve” our problems.
We are capable of nonviolence, the only species capable of doing so in fact. Violence is the opposite of civilization and humanity, nonviolence the essence of civilization and humanity. Any deranged, rabid, mongrel mutt can bite its attackers back. Only humans can choose to be nonviolent in the face of violence. Only humans can reach the hearts and minds of others through suffering and love. Only humans can convert their enemies into their friends. We are fulfilling our possibilities as humans when we embrace and engage in nonviolence. And the power of that nonviolence to defeat even the greatest of enemies without incurring the terrible mutual slaughter of war ironically makes those dedicated to nonviolence greater “warriors” than any of the greatest generals in history who could only accomplish what they did by incurring immeasurable destruction.
Then Gandhi makes a triumphant point about the power of nonviolence. Nonviolence leads to noncompliance. Violence ultimately is about submission and only ends when either one side submits to the other or both are destroyed. Having submitted to the ways of the world, they go the way of all the world. It is the lifeblood of statism (“state-ism”) and all government oppression. Using the tools of oppression only makes you another oppressor, not a liberator. But nonviolence empowers its practitioners in a way that makes the State impossible. Because the nonviolent resister cannot be terrorized by violence into engaging in the brutal game that justifies violence, the practitioner of nonviolence cannot be controlled by those in power.
Instead of submitting either to the will of the oppressor or the terror of the oppressor’s violence, by refusing to either obey or be terrified into obedience, nonviolence empowers the resister to refuse to obey those in power. This noncompliance delivers the resister from the system of the State’s control and makes him or her more powerful than all the weapons of the State, combined. Though they may beat, cage, or kill you, they can never obtain your submission because you will not comply. Therefore, they have no power over you and you are free.
This is the power of turning the other cheek. In suffering you absorb the violence of the State without submitting to its orders, laws, and/or commands. Instead, you refuse to comply and turn to it your other cheek. It too may be smote, but that is all the State can do. Having been smitten and still not terrified into submission you are now free. You have defied the State’s only tool, terror, and it can no longer control you. All by you simply refusing to comply with its rituals of violence that justify terror and signal submission. You are defiant, you do not back down. Nor do you play their game. Your spirit conquers the tyrant’s will and in doing so conquers the tyrant. And the law becomes impossible to enforce because you will not obey. Nonviolence and noncompliance by society therefore makes oppressive laws and oppressive government impossible.
End of Part 1.
Coming Monday, June 15: How We Win: Part 2-Changing The Government
The next part will move beyond merely how we win the protests and address how we challenge the system itself to create the systemic and institutional changes necessary for all in society to be equally free with equal rights.