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| Which do you agree with? |
| Chairman Mao: "Revolution comes out of the barrel of a gun." |
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31% |
[ 6 ] |
| Mohandas Gandhi: "My method is conversion, not coercion." |
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36% |
[ 7 ] |
| Someone here in these forums: "I think it�s incredibly arrogant for any of us to dismiss direct action out of hand." |
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31% |
[ 6 ] |
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| Total Votes : 19 |
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The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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 Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 9:07 pm Post subject: Civil Disobedience - Is Violence Ever Justified? |
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Here are the four important aspects of civil disobedience, as I've had it explained to me. Is any of this subject to argument among reasonable people?
1) Maintain respect for the rule of law while disobeying the specific law you oppose. Laws exist to protect the weak from the strong and unjust, at least ideally. A true activist asks society to follow and go to a better place - terrorists dislike society, and wish harm upon it while placing themselves outside of it.
2) Plead guilty and accept punishment. This is about accepting that a society is a place where people live under laws, laws which can be changed when people resist injustice and work togehter. The activist wants to change the laws and change society - terrorists strike with violence in the dark, run to the shadows and face punsihment only when caught off guard.
3) Convert your opponent by demonstrating justice in your own behavior. This is the most hopeful thing of all, that we can embody in ourselves the nature of the sort of world we want to create in the future. Activists have confidence that people can be persuaded to help build that world, even though it might take a long time - terrorists see their best hope of success in the death or subjugation of those who oppose their vision.
4) I've always loved this quote from Martin Luther King: "The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community, while the aftermath of violence is tragic bitterness."
The beloved community ... that's something worth groovin on.
Well?
Or maybe I should have offered another option: "Gee, I'd rather just go shopping."
By the way, my vote goes for Gandhi ...  |
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Unposter
Joined: 04 Jun 2006
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| Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 10:14 pm Post subject: |
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Is violence ever justified? YES!
When? That is more complicated but I would never take it off the table.
I am of the opinion that MLK was listened to as much for what he said as for what was the alternative: Malcom X and the Black Panthers. Violence can be a great motivator.
The union movement was a lot stronger too when they were ready to fight and defend themselves through violence.
Is resistance, even if it is not "directly violent," not violent?
Was Gahndi successful because he was non-violent or is occupation impossible if the citizenry are against it? At first, the English were able to use technological and more importantly psychological superiorty to inflict their hegemony over the sub-continent. Once, the so-called "Indian" people realized that the British were not infailable, that hegemony collapsed completely. Indians had become confident enough they could self-rule.
And, of course, the Indian Nationalist Movement was far from violence-free.
But, all of that doesn't mean that non-violent change is better than violent-change. But, there are probably times where violence is necessary, even helpful. |
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Khenan
Joined: 25 Dec 2007
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| Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 6:47 am Post subject: Re: Civil Disobedience - Is Violence Ever Justified? |
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| The Bobster wrote: |
terrorists dislike society, and wish harm upon it while placing themselves outside of it.
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As your post shows, this is a very complex question. In regard to the definition of terrorists, the best definition I have seen basically says that terrorists are agents of violence that lack a legitimate (recognized) nation-state.
These days, the word 'terrorist' is thrown around a lot, but it is frequently misused. North Korea and Iran, for instance, aren't terrorist states - such an entity is impossible and nonsensical, given that they have established and recognized state governments - even if they are kind of jerks.
Back to the main question at hand: of course violence can be justified. It might well be morally superior to take a punch and offer your enemy your other cheek, but there is certainly no moral requirement to do so. Any such description of morality is a human contrivance. This is IMO, of course, and I respect people who can live up to it. However, in my view, morality should be drawn out of nature - if it is not, then we are just making it up as we go along, and that doesn't sound like a universal morality to me.
For instance, if an individual is being beaten by police officers, how is that person to behave? If you claim that violence is never justifed, then that person must simply take the beating and possibly die. What kind of justice is that? Beings have a natural right to defend themselves if necessary, to protect their own survival. Similarly, if a nation-state is warring on another group, that group has a right to fight back. Would you claim that Great Brittain was behaving amorally by fighting back against Nazi Germany? I doubt that anyone would agree with that, including Ghandi. Perhaps he would have let Germany cleanse the world, but I think he would have more sense than that. |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA
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| Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 7:15 am Post subject: |
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Gandhi's non-violent civil disobedience movement was an historical failure.
India won independence mainly because of the forceful tactics of Subhas Chandra Bose.
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v03/v03p407_Borra.html
Gandhi also claimed that non-violence as a political tactic was advocated by Krishna in Bhagavad-gita - which is not true.
Unnecessary violence is condemned, and non-violence is a qualification of brahmans (priests and intellectuals) but the warrior (ksatriya) class had the duty to fight to protect people from aggression and exploitation (according to religious principles)
Actually the first massive non-violent civil disobedience movement was organized by Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (Golden Avatar of Krishna) in the early 16th Century in Bengal - in response to a ban on congregational chanting.
Several hundred thousand devotees chanting Hare Krishna (with instruments and torches) descended on the Chand Kazi magistrate's house and intimidated all the government forces.
Lord Chaitanya then personally converted the Muslim Kazi to become a great devotee, who eventually issued a decree that in that region of India the sankirtana movement of chanting Hare Krishna could never be checked in any way.
http://btg.krishna.com/main.php?id=889
Last edited by Rteacher on Tue Feb 19, 2008 6:02 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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manlyboy
Joined: 01 Aug 2004
Location: Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
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| Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 4:00 pm Post subject: |
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http://history.eserver.org/ghandi-nobody-knows.txt
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When Hitler attacked Poland, however, Gandhi suddenly endorsed the Polish army's
military resistance, calling it "almost nonviolent." (If this sounds like
double-talk, I can only urge readers to read Gandhi.) He seemed at this point to
have a rather low opinion of Hitler, but when Germany's panzer divisions turned
west, Allied armies collapsed under the ferocious onslaught, and British ships
were streaming across the Straits of Dover from Dunkirk, he wrote furiously to
the Viceroy of India: "This manslaughter must be stopped. You are losing; if you
persist, it will only result in greater bloodshed. Hitler is not a bad man...."
Gandhi also wrote an open letter to the British people, passionately urging them
to surrender and accept whatever fate Hitler' had prepared for them. "Let them
take possession of your beautiful island with your many beautiful buildings. You
will give all these, but neither your souls, nor your minds." Since none of this
had the intended effect, Gandhi, the following year, addressed an open letter to
the prince of darkness himself, Adolf Hitler. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 4:51 pm Post subject: |
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| manlyboy wrote: |
http://history.eserver.org/ghandi-nobody-knows.txt
| Quote: |
When Hitler attacked Poland, however, Gandhi suddenly endorsed the Polish army's
military resistance, calling it "almost nonviolent." (If this sounds like
double-talk, I can only urge readers to read Gandhi.) He seemed at this point to
have a rather low opinion of Hitler, but when Germany's panzer divisions turned
west, Allied armies collapsed under the ferocious onslaught, and British ships
were streaming across the Straits of Dover from Dunkirk, he wrote furiously to
the Viceroy of India: "This manslaughter must be stopped. You are losing; if you
persist, it will only result in greater bloodshed. Hitler is not a bad man...."
Gandhi also wrote an open letter to the British people, passionately urging them
to surrender and accept whatever fate Hitler' had prepared for them. "Let them
take possession of your beautiful island with your many beautiful buildings. You
will give all these, but neither your souls, nor your minds." Since none of this
had the intended effect, Gandhi, the following year, addressed an open letter to
the prince of darkness himself, Adolf Hitler. |
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ROFL
Even non-violence can be the wrong solution at times. |
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Bramble
Joined: 26 Jan 2007
Location: National treasures need homes
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 7:22 am Post subject: |
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The OP and I have agreed to try to put our differences behind us, and if this turns into a hostile discussion I�m going to withdraw my participation. I also don�t feel like repeating what I�ve stated on numerous occasions in other threads, so here�s my attempt to keep it (relatively) fresh:
| Quote: |
| Civil Disobedience - Is Violence Ever Justified? |
I think what the OP intended to ask is something along the lines of this: �Is traditional civil disobedience (in which protestors break laws openly and accept punishment with no resistance) the only acceptable form of illegal protest? The question really isn�t worded very well IMO.
The question The Bobster asks, �Is Violence Ever Justified?�, is much broader. To answer no to this second question, we�d have to oppose not only all wars and all slaughtering of animals, but also all individual acts of self-defense and all uses of force by the police. No arrests, no jails, no intervention when a crime is in progress.
Furthermore, The Bobster hasn�t given poll respondents the option of saying they oppose civil disobedience. (Is that a little weird? I�m sure more than a few posters at Dave�s are opposed to illegal acts even if they do meet the OP�s criteria.) Most importantly, as far as I�m concerned, he hasn�t defined violence.
| Quote: |
Chairman Mao: "Revolution comes out of the barrel of a gun." |
Considering the fact that I inspired this poll, and that the third option is a contextless quote from me, this is pretty misleading. Who ever said animals should be liberated using guns? I never suggested anything like that, and I don�t know of any underground or above-ground animal rights group that uses guns to achieve its ends. (Of course, other movements for social change have used guns. I think it would be interesting to ask readers if their answers depend on the issue � and if so, which injustices they consider serious enough to warrant extreme measures and why.)
| Quote: |
| Mohandas Gandhi: "My method is conversion, not coercion." |
Well, if you take that statement absolutely literally, you shouldn�t lock your door at night. You should use logic and reason to try to persuade criminals not to barge into your house. If you didn�t mean to take Gandhi�s words to such an extreme conclusion, maybe it would have been more helpful to ask poll respondents what level of coercion is acceptable, under what circumstances, who should be allowed to use it, and why.
| Quote: |
| Someone here in these forums: "I think it�s incredibly arrogant for any of us to dismiss direct action out of hand." |
Did we ever define direct action? When I said that, I was thinking of direct action in a general sense�which could encompass everything from the illegal liberation of a handful of chickens to other more potentially dangerous actions. I made no pronouncements about where to draw the line, because I didn�t have the answer. Another person might support �war� in principle but disagree with particular wars or acts of war � Can reasonable people disagree about those questions, or is it only where animals are involved that there can be no room for disagreement? |
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The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 12:06 pm Post subject: |
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Very sane responses, every one of them, even though not a single person agrees with me. It's late, and I've been working on an editing project so I can't do more than say thank you and, incidentally bump the thread in case someone else might notice it who wouldn't otherwise ...
Two things. First, I'm surprised and a little thrilled that I seem to be coming out as MORE nonviolent than our resident Hare Krishna Dude. Whoa!
Second, yeah, if I need to make it clear, I'm talking about whether you can call it civil disobedience if violence is involved, or rather instead you'd have to talk about freedom fighters, liberators or participants in armed struggle. Stuff like that. In which case, where do you draw the line between righteous action and mere thuggery?
I'll try to get back to this sometimes soon, and in the meantime other people can talk. Appreciate the civil discourse. |
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it's full of stars
Joined: 26 Dec 2007
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 10:27 pm Post subject: |
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If civil disobedience, including violence, was unjustified there would have been little change in the circumstances of many people who benefitted from the civil rights movements in The USA, Northern Ireland or South Africa for example.
I'm not advocating the use of indiscriminate terrorism.
Violence can be justified if you have exhausted all other means of communication/expression in the political environment and are still being ignored or oppressed. If you or your family are hungry, if you can't afford to buy a house, see no hope of sending your family to Higher Education, have no or few political rights, no access to the better paying jobs simply because of the genetic lottery, then something has to give. Either you break or you break something.
If you remove the option of violent action (or even thinking about violence as a viable alternative) then you remove a significant degree of freedom of choice and action. Before long free speech will no longer be free and you arrive at a 21st Century version of serfdom. |
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The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 4:09 am Post subject: |
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| it's full of stars wrote: |
| If civil disobedience, including violence, was unjustified there would have been little change in the circumstances of many people who benefitted from the civil rights movements in The USA, Northern Ireland or South Africa for example. |
The civil rights movement in America was nonviolent under Dr King, the man I quoted in the OP. It became violent with the formation of The Black Panthers, and the rhetoric of Malcomb, "by any means necessary," X - and the fact that progress in this area stalled shortly afterwards, to say nothing of the last few generations of social problems experienced by the black comunity (rampant drug abuse, absurd levels of unemployment, gangs) says a lot about which strategy was more efficacious.
The IRA in Northern Ireland was an armed and violent terrorist group, and the political wing (Shin Fein) just in the last few years decided to disband and disarm them in return for amnesty and the ability to negotiate as equals with London - one can only wonder how long ago, how much sooner, this would have happened and brought not only the peace that exists now but also the kind of tolerance and prosperity that is starting to happen for the first in hundreds of years in that place.
Nelson Mandella started out as a violent revolutionary, but against all odds his time in prison and the worldwide publicity and various apartheid boycott movements - and probably the death by torture of Stephen Biko and the constant campaigning of ethical men like Desmond Tutu - made something happen that very few would have predicted: a peaceful transfer of power from the white minority racist institutional structure to the black majority led by Mandella and the ANC. In my own lifetime it was the most remarkable thing to watch, actually, more surprising than the fall of the Berlin Wall.
By the way, the fall of the Iron Curtain is one more example of a massive displacement of longstanding previous power structure that occurred with no one setting off a bomb or firing a gun, except perhaps in celebration. In short, if people all decide at once that they don't like what their govt is doing, they can just decide all at once to stop participating in it.
Maybe you just chose some less-than perfect examples. It's okay, you can try again.
| Quote: |
I'm not advocating the use of indiscriminate terrorism.
Violence can be justified if you have exhausted all other means of communication/expression in the political environment and are still being ignored or oppressed. |
You might be right, but we'll need some better examples - can you be SURE that all other means have been exhausted? And time is a factor, as well. Meaningful change doesn't happen immediately because it requires large numbers of people to change long-held opinions. If you really cannot wait a year or 5 or 20 then perhaps a bomb will help. But, maybe not. How many decades was the IRA planting bombs in cars?
| Quote: |
| If you or your family are hungry, if you can't afford to buy a house, see no hope of sending your family to Higher Education, have no or few political rights, no access to the better paying jobs simply because of the genetic lottery, then something has to give. Either you break or you break something. |
I'm just saying that it usually doesn't work. It hasn't so far.
| Quote: |
| If you remove the option of violent action (or even thinking about violence as a viable alternative) then you remove a significant degree of freedom of choice and action. Before long free speech will no longer be free and you arrive at a 21st Century version of serfdom. |
Excuse me, but it sounds like you are running for office. With nonviolence comes a vast and wide-ranging array of choices, and most of them work better than picking up a rock and throwing it at something.
And maybe that's what it comes down to. What good is 5000 years of struggle toward civilization if we still obey the impulse we first had bred into us as hunter-gatherers on the savannah - that any problem can be solved by just picking up a rock and bashing something with it?
Last edited by The Bobster on Thu Feb 21, 2008 6:14 am; edited 1 time in total |
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it's full of stars
Joined: 26 Dec 2007
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| Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 6:07 am Post subject: |
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Thank you for whuppin' my ass.
Perhaps I did choose bad examples, or maybe didn't use the right examples from those particular choices. I'll do some research and hope to find something more than my opinion that backs me up.
But, I said that violence should be used when all other means of expression have been exhausted, not as a first resort.
Running for office? Yeah, chief chicken little. |
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The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 7:59 am Post subject: |
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| it's full of stars wrote: |
Thank you for whuppin' my ass.
Perhaps I did choose bad examples, or maybe didn't use the right examples from those particular choices. I'll do some research and hope to find something more than my opinion that backs me up.
But, I said that violence should be used when all other means of expression have been exhausted, not as a first resort.
Running for office? Yeah, chief chicken little. |
I probably came off as arrogant and smug. Apologies offered, and please accept.
Thing is, I could cite quite a few examples of important social changes that have transformed society without anyone breaking windows and splashing paint, making death threats or burning down ski lodges - or shooting doctors outside of abortion clinics or using fertilizer to bring a federal office building crashing to the ground. But these are acts that people undertake when they feel pushed to the wall and feel, as you say, they will break unless they break something first.
--> Women's rights. Suffragettes secured the right to vote for the half of Americans denied full rights of citizenship. They did not smash anything. Well, maybe one or two small things, dishes and the like ...
--> Peaceful demonstrations were held for decades outside of nuclear power plants in America. After the disasters at 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl, mass publlic opinion came around to their way of thinking, and people just stopped building the damn things. No one held a gun to anyone's head to force them to stop. It just started to seem like the bad idea it always was.
--> The day before the bombing campaign began in Iraq, 2 million people marched in the streets of NYC to say there has to be a better way. The war went on, but right now - and you can laugh at Cindy Sheehan all you want - the main issue dividing the candidates regarding the war is not whether it should go on, but how quickly we can get out. There have been no clandestine "direct actions" undertaken to change the mood of the electorate regarding Iraq, and that's because it was never necessary: people get wise sooner or later.
--> Long time ago, the govts of America, Russia, and France used to explode H-Bombs on small islands in the South Pacific. At the time, a small, determined - and peaceful - international group of citizens opposed the notion by means of such dangerous tactics as walking on the sidewalk with signs and writing letters to world leaders and giving interviews to explain why it's not a good idea. We can argue about how effective they were, but the fact is, not one of those govts does it anymore, and oh, by the way, there are treaties in place that aim to discourage the spread of these kinds of weapons. It's not a perfect world, but the good news is that we can make it better. And, most days, you don't even have to break a window, not even a small one.
--> Earth Day is an annual event in April to promote environmental awareness that started about 35 years ago. When I was in kindergarten no one knew what the word "organic" meant as related to food, but now they go looking for it in the store and are happy to pay more - and in fact, discussion about the environment is so commonplace today that no one aside from the Bush administration has had any trouble keeping up with the latest news about climate change. There ARE radical extremist groups using violence and motivated by concern for the environment but they have had absolutely ZERO effect on the process, and in fact they have detrimental impact due to the way their criminal behavior tends to make the issue gets marginalized in people's mind's as the realm of kooks and wierdos. Fortunately, progress is happening anyway, and how? People are getting educated, they are talking to each other, laws are passed and new solutions are being proposed. New solutions, and not the paleothic tactics of arson and extortion and breaking windows at night and running into the shadows.
I could go on - gay rights, Caesar Chavez and the farmworkers, gaddam, even MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) - but you see my point. Not saying that a good thing never happened because someone decided to get medieval on someone's ass, but I'm having a hard time coming up with one.
Ask two questions: 1) was violence necessary to bring about a particular change? and 2) did things actually get better? Then get back to me.
Last edited by The Bobster on Thu Feb 21, 2008 9:22 am; edited 2 times in total |
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The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 8:42 am Post subject: |
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Been trying to procrastinate, because I'm bound to make you mad no matter what I say ... but :
| Bramble wrote: |
| Considering the fact that I inspired this poll, and that the third option is a contextless quote from me, this is pretty misleading. |
I have to confess, I lied to you before when I said on another thread that this is all about you.
Fact is, it's been on my mind since I was reading about an intramural spat between Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd, two groups that trying to save the whales but disagree on the extent of what "direct action" ought to mean. (The former puts their boat between the Japanese fleet and the whales, shielding the animals with their bodies and their lives, and the latter has been known to creep aboard whaling ships at dock and punch holes in them to make them go underwater.)
I'll probably talk about those guys in a later post. Fact is, I may sound like I have a firm opinion about this stuff, but I'm open to being convinced away from the pure Gandhi apporach.
By the way, since you are mentioning context without giving any, please allow me to do so. Your quote in the poll was in defense of a group called ALF which employs violence, er, I'm sorry "direct action" in their efforts to grant voting rights to ducks and chickens. Or, something.
(That was a joke about letting chickens vote. At least, I think so.  )
| Quote: |
| Who ever said animals should be liberated using guns? I never suggested anything like that, and I don�t know of any underground or above-ground animal rights group that uses guns to achieve its ends. |
I'm not sure why you don't know because I did point it out to you before. I'll show you again, from the Animal Liberation Front website, which yourself pointed me to:
Received anonymously
Jan 2008
On the evening of December 20, 2007, the glass entry door of Salt Tavern in Baltimore was destroyed by pellet gun fire. This restaurant makes profit from the misery of tortured ducks and geese, otherwise known as foie gras. Stop selling it and we'll go away. Keep profitting from misery, we'll be visiting again soon.
ALF
You shoot a hole in my door and tell me you'll be back, I'm pretty likely to do what you ask. It's extortion, gangsterism. I've got a business to run, and my customers will have to eat tofu and hummus even if they don't like it because cowardly people might come at night again and maybe next time they won't be satisfied with inanimate objects.
Please do not accuse me of lying or distorting things or doing anything but showing your words and how they are wrong according to sources which you yourself have provided. You have a right to your opinions, and you even have a right to be wrong on factual matters - but I have a right to pont out when and how you are wrong. And please, don't hate me for that, and please try to avoid accusing me of narcotic abuse or some other crime. Okay? |
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arjuna
Joined: 31 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 9:12 am Post subject: |
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Here are some examples of the most vicious kind of violence in the universe:
Indoctrinations into religions--every single one of them
Legality of the ownership of children by parents
"I know what's best for you."
Western medicine (especially psychiatry) & pharmacy
Capitalism
On the other hand, swiftly disemboweling a mthrfcker is beauty. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 12:02 pm Post subject: |
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You're poor, aren't you? |
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