Bend over and spread 'em?
Radical Nonviolence and the Power of Powerlessness | Second Vermont RepublicI wonder... does the author of this realize just how, um, stupid his points are?
Oh, don't get me wrong - I'm sure he believes them wholeheartedly. However, there's a minor problem that he doesn't quite seem to address.
In order for his perfect, nonviolent, powerless society to exist, the entire world would have to believe as he apparently does. You get one nilhilst with a machine gun - and 'bang' goes the dream. Ghandi won in India because the Brits had bred into them the idea of fair play and fair government. If they hadn't - he'd have been dead in short order, and with him the idea that nonviolent protest can change anything.
I mean, really... "Nonviolent rebellion involves denunciation, disengagement, demystification, and defiance." makes a nice bumper sticker - but what if the folks you're defying aren't at all adverse to shooting you in the head and asking the next 'leader' politely if they'll be more cooperative? At what point DOES violence to stop violence become justifed? After a hundred deaths? A thousand? A million?
And this - if this isn't semantic trash, I don't think I've ever seen it. "Rebellion provides us with the faith to create meaning out of meaninglessness, the energy to connect with those from whom we are separated, the power to surmount powerlessness, and the courage to confront death." Well, fine then. Somehow I don't think if push came to shove, this would actually be something that would be believed.
Don't get me wrong - I do think that nonviolent protest has it's place. And it works, against an opponent that's not willing to kill protestors out of hand. It did NOT work at all well in Tiennamin Square.
Apparently this gentleman's a leader in the movement for Vermont succession. (Sigh) Well, good luck to him. Somehow, I don't see this getting much traction.
J.
Comments (3)
"When the lion and the lamb lie down together, only the lion has realistic expectations of getting up again."
"It takes two to make a peace, but only one to make a war."
I could go on, but what's the point? You are right about Ghandi, or M.L. King, for that matter. And it is a little-publicised fact that King owned, and carried, handguns for personal defense; his stance on nonviolence was that it was ineffective AS A MEANS OF ACHIEVING SOCIAL CHANGE. The fact that he was right is celebrated every January, while the Black Panthers, who DID think that violence was the way to achieve social change, are barely remembered. But nonviolence only works in countries with a conscience. Let's see; Imperial Japan, the U.S.S.R., Facist Italy, Nazi Germany, Communist China... all places where Ghandi would have been hauled to the nearest wall and matter-of-factly shot. And I am sure any readers can think of more modern examples; Communist China is still there, North Korea, etc., etc., etc.... not to mention places, such as Iraq, where it used to be like that but is GENERALLY not that way anymore, because of the use of violence as a means of achieving social change.
Posted by John C. | June 5, 2007 9:11 AM
Posted on June 5, 2007 09:11
"No one need think that the world can be ruled without blood. The civil sword shall and must be red and bloody." - Andrew Jackson
Gandhi only works when you have an authority that actually considers itself to be civilized and accountable to People. Even so far as trying to sit down with Muslims back in the 19th century and 'just work things out like good, Christian, gentlemen'.... ignoring the fact that the army they faced was none of those. Apparently Vermont has gotten itself so isolated that the air has gotten thin there. Strange for a State that looked to liberty and shed blood for it can now just discount all of that and chalk it up to not having enough denunciation or disengagement. If they had thought that way against the British at the Revolution they would have gotten demistifying bullets to help them figure out what to do.
Posted by ajacksonian | June 5, 2007 1:42 PM
Posted on June 5, 2007 13:42
I don't believe it's the state of Vermont as as whole, or even a major party. I understand it's more a back-room organization of academics. Not to say that such a group isn't dangerous - look at what Marx managed to accomplish - but these folks seem to seriously believe a unilaterally 'unthreatening' stance would bring about world peace.
Yet I am just such a skeptic on something like this... Oh, well.
J.
Posted by JLawson | June 6, 2007 11:48 PM
Posted on June 6, 2007 23:48