Creating a Non-Violent World—Is It Really
Possible?
The media is a multinational enterprise—an “Eminent
Domain”—which is the luxury of a privileged
few who influence our popular culture and control the mechanism through which the mythologies of popular culture are
transfixed. Its primary existence serves to preserve
their control of global socio-economics in posterity by bombarding us with
so much violence that we scarcely have time to be aware of the fact that we are
being manipulated. However, there are those subtle geniuses who emerge from the
frontlines and through personal experience have concluded that the status quo
is a never ending merry-go-round leading to the annihilation of both sides. In
other words, they have come to realize that hero fixation is a sickness that
symbiotically—Ying Yang, 69—enforces victimization. These geniuses work behind
the scenes influencing the media content, often changing its’ focus or
challenging accepted norms. Although there are many people who are actively
participating in efforts to transform the socio-economic landscape on many
different fronts whether through academia, media, or politics, the most
effective means to communicate ideas is through writing.
In this class on gendered communication, one such
genius we have been privileged to become acquainted with Julia Wood’s book Gendered
Lives—Communication, Gender, and Culture, and her efforts to educate us
about gender issues. Another such genius is Chris Hedges who has written a
controversial book called War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.
Julia Wood, in her book, indicts every human being
when she says that
“Cultural
acceptance of gendered violence is supported—subtly and overtly, deliberately
and inadvertently—by a number of social practices and institutions.” (Wood 319)
Wood seems to be suggesting that we all participate
consciously or unconsciously in social systems that reinforce cultural
acceptance of violence.
In his book, Hedges argues that the realization of
the American Dream has been tied enigmatically to violent conflict since its
inception.
“…wrote this book not to dissuade us from war but to
understand it. It is especially important that we, who wield such massive force
across the globe, see within ourselves the seed of our own obliteration. We
must guard against the myth of war and the drug of war that can, together,
render us as blind and callous as some of those we battle.” (Hedges 17)
Hedges book is
an indictment that charges the reader to talk openly about our country’s
violent nature and it’s fascination with war, and not to remain silent
accomplices. Hedges also challenges the media to wake up and not be so “eager
to be of service to the state during war…Such docility on the part of the
press” makes “it easier to do what governments do in wartime, indeed what
governments do much of the time, and that is lie.” (Hedges 23)
According to Hedges, “the only antidote to ward off
self-destruction and the indiscriminate use of force is humility, and
ultimately, compassion.” (Hedges 17) Julia Wood would say
“I believe that change on how we
view and enact gender is needed and possible and that the knowledge in this
book can empower individuals to change their personal lives and our shared
world.” (Wood 8)
I would like to say that “repentance” is the most
efficient way of taking individual responsibility and turning the national
tide.
The idea of repentance is something that I first
encountered when I was a child. My parents taught me the concept as part of
living the Christian way of life. If I committed a wrong against another human
being or sometimes even my own body, I would need to repent from my sin through
confession; and sometimes, I would even get punished. From my studies of the
bible I got mixed messages of war and peace. My perceptions of right and wrong
were often distorted by reading passages that talked about the conquering Israelites
killing all the women and children because the men of their ethnic clan were
considered unclean and unworthy of inhabiting their promised land. Punishment
and retribution were taught alongside mercy and compassion. What kind of
lessons are these passages from the bible communicating to believers? What kind
of lessons were my parents communicating to me when they spanked me as a child?
That punishment in and of itself was an act of violence by an adult perpetrated
on a child—indeed by my very own parent! “One of the most important
institutions shaping cultural consciousness, including perspectives on
violence, is the family (Noddings, 2002)” (Wood 316)
Reading Hedges’ book inspired me to question the origins of violence in the
world and how to go about the arduous task of creating a non-violent world. Is
this really possible? Even Hedges himself has his doubts. “Force is and I
suspect always will be part of the human condition.” (Hedges 16) What I have
discovered from my quest into this subject is that everything is possible if we
speak and care about it. We need to wake up to the reality of personal power
and collective action. Our fundamental global ideology needs to change from a
focus on me to a focus on us.
The United States of America is certainly not the
first or only nation in the world to engage in violent conflicts. Indeed,
throughout recorded history, mankind has been engaged in violent conflicts.
“The historian Will Durant calculated that there have only been twenty-nine
years in all of human history during which a war was not underway somewhere.”
(Hedges 10) And yet, who does not dream of a utopian world. I tried to imagine
what the world would be like if all mankind were restored in all its divinity,
if all people were getting what they needed, instead of taking what they
wanted—everyone would be loved and nurtured. Violence would not exist. Famine
would not exist. Death would slowly cease to exist until we re-evolved back
into our created state of being—magnificent eternal creative beings who control
time and space, who inhabit the universe with unlimited creative expression,
forever and ever. This reality is in a realm that exists beyond the symbiotic
conflict of the forces of good and evil—“The Myth.” This is how I envision the
future of humanity. However, with so much violence, chaos, and fear in the
world today, how can I make a difference? I am only one person! What can I do
when it seems that the majority of the world’s inhabitants are hero-fixated;
literally transfixed in idolatry and retribution—each person being forced into
rugged individualism—forced into a system of winners and losers? We are talking
about a massive beast of a system where the Religions of the world collude with
the Governments and Rulers of the earth in an attempt to exercise control over
the masses and preserve their positions of power—their money, property, and
prestige; by creating, disseminating, and enforcing “The Myth.”
Where do we begin to unravel the deadly web of
violence our world has inherited in the wake of this collusion? How do we
effectively and non-violently persuade others to abandon the violence that has
consumed their entire existence—this never ending battle between good and evil?
Many of our world leaders have come together to create a standard for human
rights that all nations and people of the world could embrace as a means to
establish world peace—through the adoption and enforcement of laws that support
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations; and yet this
declaration has not been universally accepted by all the nations of the world.
(http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html)
Violence continues to reign supreme! Repentance to me now means something
entirely different. Repentance must be a
literal re-thinking of the reality in which I must operate. The old code of
“an eye for an eye” has proven to reinforce violence and a new strategy for
dealing with conflict is needed.
Marshall Rosenberg PhD is the director and founder of
The Center for Non-Violent Communication and also a clinical psychologist who
spent his early years working…
“…with youths at reform schools. The
experience led him to conclude that, rather than help people to be more
compassionate, clinical psychology actually contributed to the conditions that
cause violence, because it categorized people and thus distanced them from each
other; doctors were trained to see the diagnosis; not the person. He decided
that violence did not arise from pathology, as psychology taught, but from the
ways in which we communicate.” (Killian 5)
In the biographic introduction to an interview with
Mr. Rosenberg that appeared in The Sun, February 2003, interviewer and writer
D. Killian informs us that Rosenberg’s initial revelation that eventually led
to developing his method of non-violent communication (NVC) and the formation
of his international non-profit organization. Rosenberg believes that
compassion is…
“…a natural human trait. Our survival as a species
depends on our ability to recognize that our well-being and the well-being of
others are, in fact, one and the same. The problem is that we are taught
behaviors that disconnect us from this natural awareness. It’s not that we have
to learn how to be compassionate; we have to unlearn what we’ve been taught and
get back to compassion.” (Killian 5)
Essentially the main thrust of non-violent
communication is to “restore a state in which people care about one another’s
well being.” (Killian 6) This is accomplished by a facilitated process through
which both sides, at first, are encouraged to speak candidly about what they
want the other side to understand. Both sides are also encouraged to practice
active listening skills; paraphrasing and repeating what the other side says.
The next step is to get both sides to talk about what they feel in response to
what the other side said. Usually this leads to empathy, and the realization
that both sides feel the same things. Once compassion is established then the
discussion is directed at what each side needs to restore the peace. (Killian
7) Rosenberg has worked with people in conflict all over the world. His efforts
have taken him to Israel, Palestine, Columbia, Brazil, Slovenia, Argentina, Poland,
Africa, as well as the United States; “examples of countries where Nonviolent
Communication is being utilized by teams of peace activists.” (CNVC.ORG
Rosenberg Bibliography) Rosenberg’s method of communication works at all levels
of human experience, from interpersonal relationships to world affairs.
“Central to NVC is that all moralistic judgments,
whether positive or negative, are tragic expressions of needs. Criticism,
analysis, and insults are tragic expressions of unmet needs. Compliments and
praise, for their part, are tragic expressions of fulfilled needs. So why do we
get caught up in this dead, violence-provoking language? Why not learn how to
live at the level where life is really going on? NVC is not looking at the
world through rose-colored glasses. We come closer to the truth when we connect
with what’s alive in people than when we just listen to what they think.”
(Killian 8)
I know many people can see the value in this type of communication
when resolving conflicts between individuals, but how do we expect world
leaders to talk when they are discussing, for example, the actions of George W.
Bush? Rosenberg’s answer to a question similar to this was:
“Somebody reasonably proficient in NVC might say, “I
am scared to death when I see what Bush is doing in an attempt to protect us. I
don’t feel any safer.” And then somebody who disagrees might say, “Well, I
share your desire for safety, but I’m scared of doing nothing.” Already we’re
not just talking about George Bush, but about the feelings that are alive in
both of us…coming closer to thinking about solutions…because we’ve acknowledged
that we both have the same needs. It’s only at the level of strategy that we
disagree…When our consciousness is focused on what’s alive in us, we never see
an alien being in front of us.”(Killian 8)
D. Killian, the interviewer for the article on
Marshall Rosenberg, brought up a really good point in response to Rosenberg’s
arguments. Killian asked,
“In the US right now, there are some people who would
have a lot of trouble hearing this. During a memorial for September 11, I heard
a policeman say all he wanted was payback.”(Killian 8)
Rosenberg responded to this by saying,
“One rule of our training is: empathy before
education. I wouldn’t expect someone who’s been injured to hear what I’m saying
until they felt that I had fully understood the depth of their pain. Once they
felt empathy from me, then I would introduce my fear that our plan to exact
retribution isn’t going to make us safer.”(Killian 8)
From what I have read in this extremely in-depth and
candid interview, Rosenberg gives many amazing examples of his work with
conflict situations and cites data from various studies and research being
published by philosophers, psychologists and sociologists. During the
interview, Rosenberg and Killian discuss the meaning of the term “domination
culture”, which apparently is a term Rosenberg borrowed from Walter Wink who
wrote a book called Engaging the Powers That Be. Essentially, Wink’s
concept…
“... Is that we are living under structures in which
the few dominate the many. Look at how families are structured here in the
United States: the parents claim always to know what’s right and set the rules
for everybody else’s benefit. Look at our schools. Look at our workplaces. Look
at our government, our religions. At all levels, you have authorities who
impose their will on other people, claiming that it’s for everybody’s
well-being. They use punishment and reward as the basic strategy for getting
what they want. That’s what I mean by domination culture.”(Killian 8)
This “domination culture” is what I was talking about
in my opening paragraph about the “Eminent domain” being “the luxury of a
privileged few.” In exploring the example of mainline religions, the “myth”
that they have established is that man is basically evil and requires
salvation. The media colludes by reinforcing these values, beliefs, customs and
traditions. By following the rules established by God for mankind’s well-being
being, mankind will be rewarded with eternal life in heaven, if he does not, he
will suffer the torments of hell or the grave. Corporations reap millions in
profits as people consume to conform. Horrible and extreme acts of violence
been committed in the name of religion due to such a complete surrender of
man’s own will to his God. Even the language that I am using to describe this
ideology is gendered and reflective of the power structure. The oppressed
people of the world are the innocent victims of this socio-economic beast that
has religious ideology riding on its back—The Babylon American Dream Machine.
However, today many more people are embracing non-violent communication
methods—even changing their vocabulary—and embracing new ways of looking at
human social relationships that ultimately recognize human needs and
validate our basic human trait of compassion—a complete acceptance of
all people—regardless of their age, race, class, or gender. “There is a great
deal that each of us can do to lessen gendered violence. The most basic,
personal choice is to decide that you will not engage in or tolerate violence
in your relationships.” (Wood 320)
According to
Rosenberg,
“Social psychologist Milton Rokeach
did some research on religious practitioners in the seven major religions. He
looked at people who very seriously followed their religion and compared them
to people in the same population who had no religious orientation at all. He
wanted to find out which group was more compassionate. The results were the
same in all major religions: the nonreligious were more compassionate. Rokeach warned readers to be careful how they interpreted
his research, however, because within each religious group, where two radically
different populations: a mainstream group and a mystical minority. If you
looked at just the mystical group, you found that they were more compassionate
than the general population…the mystical minority see compassion and empathy as
part of human nature. ‘We are this divine energy,’ they say. It’s not something
we have to attain. We just have to realize it, be present to it. Unfortunately,
such believers are in the minority and are often persecuted by fundamentalists
within their own religions…Rokeach calls the
judgmental group the Salvationists. For them, the goal is to be rewarded by
going to heaven. So you try to follow your religion’s teachings not because
you’ve internalized an awareness of your own divinity and relate to others in a
compassionate way, but because these things are “right” and if you do them,
you’ll be rewarded, and if you don’t you’ll be punished.”(Killian 9)
Apparently Rosenberg is attempting to help us
understand the difference between the efforts of those who use negative
inducements to accomplish changes while others use attractive inducements to
accomplish changes. The difference seems clear to me. Each has a different
ideological basis to accomplishing change. One uses force or the threat of
force while the other uses acceptance, compassion, and understanding.
Essentially, Rosenberg contends that by learning how to communicate in a
non-violent manner, one actually facilitates peace!
There is one final thing I want to discuss, although
I am trying to keep this paper down to a manageable size, I am feeling that
there is so much that can be said about creating a non-violent world. Perhaps I
have indeed bitten off a huge topic but I do wish to do it justice. The big
question after considering Rosenberg, Hedges, and Wood on this journey of
discovery into creating a non-violent world surprisingly, I have found some
amazing connections in the Eros and Thanatos chapter
of Chris Hedges book that support one of the primary means at our disposal to
accomplish our task. Wood calls it “being an effective change agent,” (Wood 10)
Rosenberg called it “connecting to what is alive in all of us,” (Killian 7)
Hedges calls it “love,” I call it the most powerful exercise of our free
will—loving others as we want to be loved—taking a proactive approach to
communicating the fact that we care about the well being of every living being.
“Love, when it is deep and sustained
by two individuals, includes self-giving—often self sacrifice—as well as
desire. For the covenant of love is such that it recognizes both the fragility
and the sanctity of the individual. It recognizes itself in the other. It alone
can save us.” (Hedges 161)
Before one can build a world consensus, individuals
must first come to the realization that a future non-violent reality is
possible. As each new individual comes to the realization, he/she joins with
other individuals who come to the same realization and consensus begins to
build. However, there are so many obstacles to overcome; the largest of these
is the desire by some individuals to advocate violence as a means to accomplish
their goals. In the Eros and Thanatos chapter, Hedges
points out that Freud believed that Love and Death (Eros and Thanatos in English) were “forces…in eternal conflict. He
was pessimistic about ever eradicating war. All human history, he argued, is a
tug-of-war between these two instincts.”(Hedges 158) For many years this
man—Freud—influenced popular thinking. Since then men like Hedges,
Rosenberg—women like Wood—are attempting to redefine our point of view and look
toward reconciliation of the sexes and collective empowerment as a means to end
violence. I wish to bring into the discussion the ideas of another great man,
Paolo Freire, whose ideas have and are challenging
the status quo. Even though it seems the whole world is fascinated by this
conflict of Love and Death, they point us in the right direction, each in their
own way. What can we do to break up this symbiotic and destructive
relationship?
Well, Hedges indicted us with a passionate plea to
examine war, the ultimate form of miscommunication, in all its apparent
intricacies—warning us about its seductive and addictive qualities. He
demonstrated that many, many people voluntarily give up their free will to
indulge in patriotism, nationalism, and to fight the wars oblivious to the
suffering their actions are bringing to bear on the innocent victims. We are
deceived by the myth through systematic deception and propaganda designed to
conform us into the “us and them” mentality. We are driven by fear of chaos and
violence. And in defending our nation and our way of life we are actually
oppressing the people who are becoming our enemies; we are the ones to blame
for the hatred directed at our nation.
“As long as we think abstractly, as
long as we find in patriotism and the exuberance of war our fulfillment, we
will never understand those who do battle against us, or how we are perceived
by them, or finally those who do battle for us and how we should respond to it
all. We will never discover who we are. We will fail to confront the capacity
we all have for violence. And we will court our own extermination. By accepting
the facile cliché that the battle under way against terrorism is a battle
against evil, by easily branding those who fight us as the barbarians, we, like
them, refuse to acknowledge our own culpability. We ignore real injustices that
have led many of those arrayed against us to their rage and despair.” (Hedges
180)
Chris Hedges is like the prophets of the ancient
Hebrew Scriptures who came to call the world to repentance. Rosenberg, on the
other hand, is attempting to show us that the problem lies in the way we
communicate; that we can facilitate peace by learning to communicate in a
non-violent way. But, the ideas of Paolo Freire, are
truly revolutionary, and governments who have embraced his concepts have not
only seen huge increases in literacy rates, but have also seen their citizens
become more empowered politically and able to take a more proactive approach to
facilitating peace in their communities. (http://www.nl.edu/ace/Resources/Freire.html)
Freire’s ideas are based on neo-Marxist ideologies
around personal and collective empowerment.
When I took my first writing class a couple of years
ago, I was introduced to an author named Paulo Freire
who wrote a book called Pedagogy of
the Oppressed. In his book the reader is asked to consider the
foundations of education and learning. Freire, in chapter
two of this book, wants us to understand that humanity has been enslaved by a
misguided and oppressive system of education that deprives students of
creativity reduces their potential for personal transformation, and leaves them
feeling depreciated and unfulfilled. (Freire 27) Freire call this the Banking
Concept of Education. This concept has prevented us from realizing our
innate potential and has robbed us of our free will. We have become docile, “well-behaved”
citizens that more closely resemble sheep; we can be easily controlled and
manipulated. In that writing class, we were given an essay written by Freire regarding this concept. Our assignment was to read
the essay and then write a paper discussing our reactions to his ideas. His
ideas profoundly influenced me to engage in a critical evaluation of myself and
it is now my belief that before anyone can engage in truly facilitating peace
they must first undergo a “critical intervention in reality.” (Freire 42)
In his essay, Freire went
on to describe an alternate method of education wherein students and the
teachers are equals; he calls it the problem-posing
concept. Instead of considering
students as mere “receptacles to be filled,” problem-posing education considers
students as “conscious beings” and teachers as knowledge facilitators (Freire 41). Within this system, students are transformed
by the “emergence of consciousness” (Freire 42). This "emergence" causes a “critical
intervention in reality” that affirms our innate potential (Freire
42).
Many times in the past I have felt like an equal with
my teachers, as well as dehumanized by my educators. I remember a particular
situation involving a piano teacher who had a tremendous reverence for
classical music. She felt that only those who had years of instruction were
qualified to compose music. I was so excited about learning to play a few songs
on the piano. But we always had to practice for an hour doing finger exercises
to warm up before we got to play any particular pieces.
While practicing on our piano at home, I began to
experiment with patterns that I saw emerging before my eyes on these black and
white keys. As my fingers glided from one end of the keyboard to the other, my
mind was seeing multiplicity. Evidently I had an ear and an inherent knack for
improvisation. Well, I created some songs of my own. On one particular day I
really wanted to show my teacher what I had created. My songs had become my
emotional expression of wonder. She wouldn’t even let me play the songs for
her. She scolded me for having the audacity to imagine that I could compose
music after only having had lessons for three months. I was crushed. I swore
that I would never touch a piano again. I stopped having lessons, but I kept on
experimenting in secret.
Years later, I met a woman from Brazil who played the
piano. She impressed me with her ability to improvise. She took the time to
show me some basic techniques that helped to rekindle my passion for music.
This woman exemplifies the kind of problem-posing teacher that Freire talks about. I feel lucky to have met her, and I
feel privileged to have since had several teachers who must surely be committed
to the problem-posing concept.
Ultimately, an honest and thorough self-evaluation is
paramount to beginning the process of self-discovery. Even Jesus is quoted in
the bible saying, “The truth will set you free.” Freire
says that “in problem-posing education, men develop their power to perceive
critically the way they exist in the world with which and in which they find
themselves; they come to see the world not as a static reality, but as a
reality in process, in transformation” (Freire 45).
Therefore, we must align ourselves with individuals committed to problem-posing
education if we are to “more wisely build a future” (Freire
45). Aligning ourselves with others is taking collective action.
I know many things—bits
of information either by memorization, personal experience, reading,
watching television, and so on. Some things I know because of unpleasant
circumstances, and other things I learned out of great joy. Throughout all of
my academic experiences, my personal point of view, my fundamental perceptions
of reality, I find a common thread. No cohesion existed in my life until I took
the time to stop learning and reflect on the past. It was imperative that I
take an inventory of my life’s accumulations.
I started with all of the things I feared or hated. These seemed like as
logical as any a place to start because they caused me the most discomfort.
In my list, I included some ominous things like
religion, taxes, and law. I began to see how many decisions I had made in my
life were based on the circumstances of the moment. For example, I learned that
I could hurt myself falling off the table when I actually did fall and hurt
myself. My mother had already told me repeatedly not to climb up on top of the
table. I learned not to play with matches when my mother made me sit and light
a thousand matches in a row until I puked. I learned that elementary school
children can be very cruel and vicious because of their taunts and prejudice. I
learned the times tables by heart. I learned that you could be placed under
arrest for picking flowers in someone’s front yard. I learned that some
freedoms I could not posses, no matter what the cost. All of these things that
I had learned as a child remained with me into my twenties. I was very unhappy
about a lot of things, and I had no idea where to begin the arduous process of
sorting things out. This process, for me, was very much like declaring bankruptcy in the banking
concept of education.
This process I am engaged in has taught me that the
essence of true knowledge is a combination of memorized information filtered
through the eye of personal experience, a storehouse of endless bounty freely
imparted to cognitive minds. Each and every one of us must take response-ability. What is true for us is
what coalesces as a result of the decisions we make based on the available data
and experience at any particular moment in time. We need to consider ourselves
as beings in progress, able to
reevaluate and restructure our reality at will.
This process I just described connects us to “what is
alive in us” and allows us to connect to “what is alive in all of us.” (Killian
7) It represents our emancipation from ignorance and injustice. It is our
ticket to a non-violent world. “Then you can make informed choices about what
you believe and about what identity you wish to fashion for yourself.” (Wood
11) By engaging in a critical intervention in our reality, we find love for
ourselves and forgiveness for others. And in forgiving others, even those
considered our enemies; we take a proactive step in loving them and diffusing
the anger and hostility that is being directed towards us. This is the only way
we are going to be able to survive as a species. This is the only way to
conquer the Thanatos instinct.
“To survive as a human being is
possible only through love. And, when Thanatos is
ascendant, the instinct must be to reach out to those we love, to see in them
all the divinity, pity, and pathos of the human. And to recognize love in the
lives of others—even those with who we are in conflict—love that is like our
own. It does not mean we will avoid war or death. It does not mean that we as
distinct individuals will survive. But love, in its mystery, has its own power.
It alone gives us meaning that endures. It alone allows us to embrace and
cherish life. Love has power both to resist in our nature what we know we must
resist, and to affirm what we know we must affirm. And love, as the poets
remind us, is eternal.” (Hedges 184-185)
What is preventing us from beginning our process of
self-discovery, recreating the reality within which we exist?
“To be a credible catalyst for
change, you must be informed about gender inequities and how they are created
and sustained by communication within our culture. You must understand how
conventional views of masculinity and femininity lead to inequities, how they
reflect cultural values, and how institutional, social, and personal communication
sustain the status quo.” (Wood 10)
In Julia Wood’s book we read about countless examples
of how gendered communication leads to gender inequities and assumptions about
the nature of the relationships between people that not only have a profound
impact on the quality of women’s lives but also demonstrates how gendered
communication is harmful to all human beings. As examples of these
aforementioned concepts in action, providing us a deeper look into the dynamics
at work in restructuring our reality, and assisting us in identifying the road
blocks to success, for this next section, I will be referring to readings from
chapter 28 of the book Current Issues and Enduring Questions: A Guide to
Critical Thinking and Argument, With Readings (Barnet and Bedau 809-886) because I think we may find a clue
understanding these roadblocks through a discussion of the concept of free
will.
In a recent class, I was asked to consider the
concept of free will and it is where I was first introduced to the works of
Plato, and particularly to a selection entitled Crito,
the third in a series of four dialogues telling the story of the final days of
Socrates (469-399 B.C.). In this
selection, which reads like a play, we are privy to an imaginary debate between
Socrates and Crito. Socrates has dedicated his entire
life to illuminating the minds of his fellow Athenians and has voluntarily
submitted to prison and certain death because he places obedience to the law of
his country as his highest moral imperative. Crito, a
long time admirer of Socrates, “urges him to escape while he still has the
chance.” (Barnet and Bedau 810)
CRITO: … Besides, Socrates, I don’t even fell that it
is right for you to try to do what you are doing, throwing away your life when
you might save it. You are doing your best to treat yourself in exactly the
same way as your enemies would, or rather did, when they wanted to ruin you.
What is more, it seems to me that you are letting your sons down too. You have
it in your power to finish their bringing up and education, and instead of that
you are proposing to go off and desert them, and so far as you are concerned
they will have to take their chance. And what sort of chance are they likely to
get? The sort of thing that usually happens to orphans when they lose their
parents. Either one ought not to have children at all, or one ought to see
their upbringing and education through to the end. It strikes me that you are
taking the line of least resistance, whereas you ought to make the choice of a
good man and a brave one, considering that you profess to have made goodness your object all through life.
(Barnet and Bedau 812-813)
Crito is convinced that Socrates is making a mistake. He
believes that Socrates could do more good alive than dead. However, Socrates
had pondered his decision well before Crito’s
arrival. Socrates responds to Crito by telling him,
SOCRATES... I cannot abandon the principles which I
used to hold in the past simply because this accident has happened to me; they
seem to me to be much as they were, and I respect and regard the same
principles now as before. So unless we can find better principles on this
occasion, you can be quite sure that I shall not agree with you; not even if
the power of the people conjures up fresh hordes of bogies to terrify our
childish minds, by subjecting us to chains and executions and confiscations of
our property…Serious thinkers, I believe, have always held some such view as
the one which I mentioned just now: that some of the opinions which people
entertain should be respected, and others should not. (Barnet
and Bedau
813-814)
I must admit that when I first read the whole
selection I thought to myself that Socrates was a fool for choosing death. In
fact the final dialogue “ends with Socrates, in the company of his closest
friends, bidding them a last farewell and drinking the fatal cup of hemlock.”
(But after considering the comments of fellow students I came to the conclusion
that Socrates was exercising his free will by submitting to the authorities he
cherished, even though he did not agree with their decision. He must have felt
that his example would be an inspiration to generations to come. As indeed it
has because the text credits Plato with influencing the whole of Western
philosophy. It is interesting to note that according to the second dialogue,
Socrates had “been charged with preaching
false gods (heresy) and corrupting the youth by causing them to doubt or
disregard the wisdom of their elders.” (Barnet and Bedau
809) It seems a bit out of character for Socrates, on one hand, to encourage
others to doubt or disregard the wisdom of elders, but then to obediently and
decidedly accept his death sentence. This is a curious contradiction.
In sharp contrast to Socrates, we also were offered a
selection written by Martin Luther King Jr. from his jail cell in Birmingham,
Alabama. Up to this point, negotiations had failed to win the support of the
community, so King felt that he had no choice but to “prepare for direct
action.” The nature of Kings direct actions are revealed in the following
passage.
You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit-ins,
marches, and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in
calling or negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action.
Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a
tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to
confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be
ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the
nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not
afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but
there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for
growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the
mind so that the individuals could rise from the bondage of objective
appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind
of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice
and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The
purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed
that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. (Barnet
and Bedau
843)
I think it is most interesting that King mentions
Socrates in his letter when talking about creating tension through crisis. This
is very much in line with Freire’s ideas about
“critical intervention” in reality. The reality confronting King was entrenched
racism and prejudice, and the direct-action program he was endorsing was a
“critical intervention” in that reality. Socrates concluded that obedience of
unjust laws would eventually demonstrate their injustice, while King concluded
that there were two types of laws: just and unjust. He advocated obedience to
just laws, but disobedience to unjust laws. King says,
“To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An
unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.
Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human
personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because the
segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the
segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of
inferiority. Segregation … ends up relegating persons to the status of things.
(Barnet and Bedau 845)
Finally I wish to discuss the experiments conducted
by Stanley Milgram (1933-1984) who also wrote a book
on conformity. The excerpt from his research entitles The Perils of Obedience was both shocking and revealing. Milgram writes:
Obedience is as basic an element in
the structure of social life as one can point to. Some system of authority is a
requirement of all communal living, and it is only the person dwelling in
isolation who is not forced to respond, with defiance or submission, to the
commands of others. For many people, obedience is a deeply ingrained behavior
tendency, indeed a potent impulse overriding training in ethics, sympathy, and
moral conduct. The dilemma inherent in submission to authority is ancient, as
old as the story of Abraham, and the question of whether one should obey when
commands conflict with conscience has been argued by Plato, dramatized by Antigone, and treated to philosophic analysis in almost
every historical epoch. Conservative philosophers argue that the very fabric of
society is threatened by disobedience, while the humanists stress the primacy
of the individual conscience. (Barnet and Bedau 855)
Milgram set up an experiment to test the lengths people were
willing to go to obey an authority, even when “pitted against the subjects’
strongest moral imperatives.” It was shocking to me to read about the “extreme
willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an
authority.” (Barnet and Bedau 855) What I though was
most revealing was the fact that only a handful of people in the experiment
stood on their conscience and terminated the experiment. All of the subjects
seemed concerned with personal responsibility for causing harm to the student
in the test, and most of the subjects were willing to go to great lengths to
inflict pain on the student only after they were assured by the authority that
they would not be held personally responsible for inflicting the electric
shocks. To me this experiment demonstrated that every one of the subjects had a
conscience, and that they could dismiss their conscience if they were assured
that they would not be at fault if they caused serious injury or even death.
This experiment demonstrates, in a shocking way, why it is so important for us
to care about the well being of all individuals because if we cared about the
well being of someone we are being told to harm—in obedience to the authority
we are under—we would resist that authority and take action to stop the harm
being done.
Discussions about free will and determinism,
obedience and defiance can be extremely confusing; especially to a person who
has no sense of purpose—that has lost their identity. And yet a clear
understanding of these concepts and their personal implications are tantamount
to becoming an “effective agent for change.” (Wood 10) This is why I am so
vehement on this concept of an inventory process—a critical intervention in
reality. Why not take a thorough look into our lives without judgment? Why not
accept ourselves exactly where we are right now? How else can we build a
future? If we build our lives on denial, we will surely fail. Until we have
fully taken a good look into our lives, we merely masquerade as people. We
spend our lives reflecting the qualities and behavior demonstrated to us
through popular culture as represented to us through the media—what we admire
in the lives of others. Often we reflect not only what we like, but what we
also detest. The nature of addiction is to hide in things that hurt us. We are
like thieves only because we believe we are. If we truly are children of the
Earth, we deserve to have all that is good. Why should we have to feel like we
are stealing just to get love, or poorly constructed imitations? We settle for
a "trade" instead. We make deals. And if we are still left with the
emptiness we started out with, then we steal again. This pattern eventually
becomes a vicious cycle. Why should we steal what should freely be given?
This has been an amazing journey for me researching
this topic about creating a non-violent world. There is so much more that I
could talk about, so many directions my search has taken me but, alas, I seem
to have arrived at page twelve. Letting go of the idolatrous and all consuming
concept of good and evil is a whole five page paper in itself, and will most
likely be the subject of some future paper. So, in conclusion I would like to
stress that it is possible—as one person—to make a difference in my immediate
surroundings, as well as, to collectively make a difference nationally, and
globally. By aligning myself with people who have drawn similar conclusions
about needing to take a radically different approach to solving the world’s
conflicts, I have the power to change the world—one soul at a time. I can see
that leading by example and taking a non-gendered, non-violent approach to all
my communications and conflicts with people in my daily life “connecting to
what’s alive in others,” seizing opportunities to inform others about these
life changing ideas, resisting communication that is gendered in such a way as
to create inequity among the sexes, and participating in non-violent
demonstrations of resistance to violent conflicts I will grow to the point
where fear will no longer dominate my thoughts and my life. I will live with
the satisfaction of knowing that I am participating in a worthwhile endeavor
that will increase the quality of life I experience and the level of personal
peace and security every human being will enjoy. We can be my own heroes.
Works Cited
Barnet and Bedau. Current
Issues and Enduring Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking and Argument, with
Readings, Sixth Edition. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s 2002.
Centre For Non-violent Communication. Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD
Bibliographical Information http://www.cnvc.org/mrbio.htm:
retrieved
Freire, Paolo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. The Banking
Concept of Education. New York, NY: Continuum International Publishing
2000.
Hedges, Chris. War Is A Force That Gives Us
Meaning. New York: Public Affairs/Perseus Books
Group, 2002.
Killian D. Beyond Good & Evil: Marshall Rosenberg
On Creating A Nonviolent World. Chapell Hill, N.C.:
The Sun Magazine, February 2003. Available online at http://www.thesunmagazine.org/326_Rosenberg.pdf
United Nations. Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Adopted and proclaimed by General
Assembly resolution 217 A (III) of 10 December 1948. http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html:
retrieved
Wink, Walter. Engaging The Powers: Discernment and
Resistance in a World of Domination (The Powers, Volume 3). Fortress Press,
November 1992.
Wood, Julia. Gendered Lives: Communication,
Gender, and Culture. California: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2003.