"To any NSA / CIA / FBI / etc. spooks who are reading this - blow me."
It is easy to feel anger towards those we perceive as oppressors, but if this nascent movement (I hope it is a movement!) is to have any success, thoughts like these from Gandhi should not be forgotten:
Real noncooperation is noncooperation with evil and not with the evil doer.
Noncooperation is not a hymn of hate.
My noncooperation is with methods and systems, never with men.
Gandhi's tactics, while plainly effective in his time and place, against his aggressors, should not be accepted as universalizable. It is not the only way to realize change, nor it is necessarily the most effective way to realize change in any particular situation, nor is it even necessarily a way that works in the slightest in any situation.
Noncompliance and noncooperation have a time and a place. We must avoid the temptation of viewing them as silver bullets simply because we find them pleasant, easy to stomach.
Reducing Gandhi's tactics to noncompliance and noncooperation is a great mistake. I think it is better to view them through what is in essence a key commonality between upper caste Hinduism and ancient Greek Stoicism, namely that all we can control are our own actions and responses, and therefore the greatest form of heroism is to lead the life we choose and to make that choice heroically, the rest of the world be damned.
The struggle then becomes one about respect and cooperation, without which no government can last, for even the greatest tyranny is executed not by one man giving orders but by everyone cooperating. The underdog struggles to inspire others. The state struggles to keep the facade of legitimacy. Sometimes the words "you are no longer our legitimate government" are stronger than all the guns in the world.
Imagine if half the country suddenly decided to no longer respect American law. They refused to pay taxes, obey traffic law, etc. What would the government do? In the end, they wouldn't be able to do anything. Once you understand that proposition, Gandhi's methods start looking a lot less gentle and a lot more dangerous.
>Imagine if half the country suddenly decided to no longer respect American law. They refused to pay taxes, obey traffic law, etc. What would the government do?
Start beating the shit out of people, killing them, etc., etc. and the people would very quickly relent.
As Harry Potter in _Methods of Rationality_ observed, non-violent resistance only worked against the British because (at the time; not to say the British haven't had some bloody years) the had no stomach for butchering helpless men. Against the Nazis, however, it would be useless, because their capacity for violence was much higher.
So the question you have to ask yourself, before non-violently resisting, is whether your oppressors will beat themselves or you down faster.
The British committed acts of genocide in virtually every colony. Just because they were not as efficient as the Germans, don't think they were not every bit as depraved.
This is the first proof by fan fiction I've ever seen. Well played. The Methods of Rationality are in fact awesome, so I guess it is worth considering. Take that copyright and (potentially) reality!
Awesome? That opinion isn't universal. I've read perhaps 75% of the 505,040 words (87 chapters) of MoR, and while it was somewhat interesting at first, before long it grew quite tedious. Much of the tedium is due to the length—it's longer than Rowling's first four books combined.[1] The style comes off as preaching in-jokes to the choir, and I don't think it will pay off the time investment as a means of popularizing rational thought.
Ugh, I really wish fan fiction would stop being "a thing". If you have talent then make up your own story, ffs. Why do you need to tell stories from someone else's universe?
You do realize that it is not true, right? That British had plenty of appetite for violence. Where do people get this idea that British were compassionate to Indian cause?
Just look for the hero Churchill's view of Indians on the web.
The views of individuals don't necessarily matter; it is plausible that individual leaders or soldiers still were as ruthless as ever, but if the population no longer supported it, it would be a political dead-end.
But yeah, "stuff I read in fan fiction" is on the lowest tier of my information-trust-chart. I'm a bit curious about why the British did give up on colonies. Was there really a sea change in British public opinion over the course of the World Wars? Was it a moral decision or an economic one? I could think of a dozen of reasons, which makes none of them worth speculating about aloud, but honestly this part of history is also pretty low on my reading list...
Side note: Every time I see that fic mentioned, I cringe internally. The author wasn't above asking for money in return for every chapter (and implying he won't post if he didn't get X amount of money).
The fact that countering protest strategies (as distinguished from philosophies) are absorbed by the state and its authorities is the reason why marching in the streets and White House petitions and any other marginally (or not) effective approaches no longer work.
Though the repercussions remain to be seen, this week we find that leaking is possibly the most effective form of protest available today, and certainly more effective than picket signs and camping in parks.
The question that I guess I have is how effective is outing yourself after you have performed the leak?
If the leaker had any chance of remaining secret, then I think I would say that the leaker should choose to remain secret, and in doing so live to fight another day. On the other hand, if the leaker suspects that they will be uncovered regardless, it is probably best to choose the circumstances of your unveiling.
They aren't leakers or really protestors, but it is for the best that the Dread Pirate Roberts remain anonymous. If they had to go public though, it would be better for the headline to be on CNN: "Silk Road Founder [Whoever] Says/Does [Whatever]" rather than, on local news: "Local drug kingpin arrested today. Then later: How little Timmy rescued a kitten."
As an Indian, I LOL at this. If you think the Imperial English government did not butcher Indians, you have obviously not studied Indian history much.
I have nothing against today's English people, they are terrific people. But, Imperialism as a culture should stay consigned in the dustbin of history - it makes monsters out of ordinary men. It should never be revived again with terrorism and national security as future excuses.
Whether or not we can effectively realize change while restricting ourselves as Gandhi advocated remains to be seen. I think it is premature to assume that it is sufficient (and certainly premature to chastise those who feel strongly about this recent news).
Just one example of something that goes beyond Gandhi's approval (which may or may not be necessary in this particular case) is targeted industrial sabotage. Carefully calculated and restrained violence against property and information systems, not against people. Gandhi thought that sabotage put his effort back; perhaps he is correct. However it is hard to deny the valuable role sabotage has played in other conflicts.
This recent comment resonated with me:
"I'm French. France was occupied by Nazi Germany (as every American I ever speak to likes to remind me).
Resistants were ordinary French people who blew up trains in order to make the life of Germans in France as difficult as possible -- and of course German propaganda called them terrorists. I'm not putting this word in quotes, because of course that's what they were. They were trying to terrify the occupiers. It was a good thing." -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5846266
Now plainly I am not advocating that we should start blowing up bridges, or that blowing up bridges might become necessary in some foreseeable immediate future. We are not occupied by a foreign force that is sending our neighbors to death camps. I reference this merely to make the point that the reach of Gandhi's tactics do have a limit.
Edit: Not sure why you deleted your comment. It was a very fair question.
Gandhi's approach is guaranteed to work for those who turn to it because the core values are, "I don't want to live in a violent world nor inflict violence on others." If it turns out the world is immutably violent, you will probably die at the hands of somebody else, but at least you were consistent with your values - you no longer live in a violent world, and you didn't hurt anyone to get there. Of course it is all predicated on the belief that after enough unarmed protestors have been shot, violence will come to an end, due to a combination of compassion for the victims, guilt over one's actions, and outrage against the aggressors.
Whether it would be effective for non-believers (i.e. the people who aren't willing to put their lives on the line) against other regimes is hard to say. I'm not sure it has been tested outside of India or ever will be, since it requires suicidal amounts of willpower to follow through.
So, while not advocating suicide-by-aggressor civil disobedience, I also think it's purely speculation as to what would happen if it were tried on a large scale. Closest thing that comes to mind is the Tiananmen square tank man, and that was one guy.
Right... Gandhi's approach is 'guaranteed' to work in limited circumstances. It does not work if your numbers are too few, if the opposition has a greater capacity for violence than you anticipate (this isn't about the world being violent, only the subset that oppose you need to be sufficiently violent. Relying on somebody else using violence against your murderers in the outraged aftermath of your slaughter is just shifting the responsibility to those other people.)
Gandhi's methods have been tested outside of India, perhaps most famously during the civil rights era in the US (if we write off the influence of those who were not wed to nonviolence and noncompliance). In that case they had the benefit of an interested party that consisted of a double-digit percentage of the population (and a far greater percentage in areas with particularly egregious issues.)
The problem with advocating noncompliance and nonviolence is that if you miscalculate the breadth of your support or your oppositions capacity for violence, then not only will you have accomplished nothing but you will have actually damaged your cause by removing yourself from it.
So like we basically agree from the perspective of outsiders, but that's not really what I meant. If you have been radicalized to the extent of being willing to die for nonviolence, you still win if they kill you because you are dying for your beliefs.
As a radicalized person, there cannot even be futile resistance, because if the violent people were to kill all of their enemies, there wouldn't be any violence left to commit. If so, mission accomplished. It's very much a love thine enemy philosophy.
When I say that Gandhi's methods haven't been tested outside of India, I'm referring to people passively offering up their lives to the state. Did this really happen during the civil rights movement?
Personally I believe that this kind of self-sacrifice is not worth it, even if change is effected.
I guess you and I have a fundamentally different notion of "win". If you are radicalized, they kill you for it, and then life for everyone else carries on as it was, then for me that is not a win. That is beyond any doubt a loss, and I consider opting to do that rather than sacrifice non-violence for a hope at enacting change that others can appreciate to be a selfish act.
Nonviolence is not a goal for me. I consider it a tool with limited application. Failing to build a doghouse with a hammer, instead of successfully building the doghouse with a screwdrivers, is nothing to be proud of. The doghouse is what I am interested in, not the application of hammers.
Or to put it in more concrete terms, the world would not be a better place had the French Resistance chosen to adopt nonviolent noncompliance. Their acts of violence were, without any question, justified and "worth it".
And yes, people were absolutely putting their lives at risk during the civil rights era. People were being beaten and in many cases, killed.
I respectfully have to say that I think you're missing the point. If you'll forgive how ridiculous this sounds, I'll use your analogy to illustrate the difference.
It's not about what you build with the hammer that matters to this person. It's that he consistently uses the hammer regardless of what is built or how efficiently it is accomplished, because he believes using the hammer to be the true way of life and far more important than the product being created. By using a more suitable tool he believes that he has already lost.
No, that came through loud and clear to me. I disagree with him; picking the best tool for the job is more important than remaining pure in your tool use. I think that his belief that "using the hammer to be the true way of life and far more important than the product being created" is selfish. It is better to sacrifice your purity to save others. There is nothing noble about being trampled.
Had the French Resistance decided that the principles of nonviolence and noncompliance were more important than killing german officers and blowing up trains, then I would think far less of them. If he thinks that they lost the moment they used violence and sabotage, then I think he is wrong.
Meh, you're basically arguing with a religion, which is fine, but a pretty big task. You value the end over the means. Some people believe the reverse, that the process is more meaningful and important than the goal / reward (something I become more and more convinced of as I get older).
If acting according to your beliefs is selfish... well then aren't we all selfish (arguably true)?
You and I have the same idea of win and we share similar beliefs; I was trying to explain things from what I understand to be the mindset of someone who fully buys into Gandhi's belief system. I seem to be doing a bad job... and there is a chance I have got it all wrong anyway.
I think you miss the real power of Gandhi's method (as do most people who want to reduce it to pacifism). The point is very simply, to live life as both a protest against what the world is, and as an example of what it can be. Be heroic. Be strong. Let nobody break you.
I don't think that Gandhi's writings espouse a general abhorrence of violence or even sabotage. They represent however a willingness to stand above such methods, and to be heroic in every little thing. The salt protest is perhaps a great example. The message is "I don't need to sabotage you because you cannot break me."
The distinction between violence and non-violence is a remarkably difficult one to make. Punching someone in the gut is undeniably violent, but what about deeply insulting a person's character? Why do we draw a line between those? Why is it that razing a bridge is violent but sitting down in the revolving door of a business establishment preventing customers from entering not? So-called non-violent resistance tends to eschew deliberate and overt outward and tangible violence for a more subtle but even more important battleground, that of morale based on legitimacy and the moral high ground.
> I reference this merely to make the point that the reach of Gandhi's tactics do have a limit.
But here's the real dirty secret. It doesn't matter who is in power, the average everyday decisions are made by individuals, and foreign powers rely very heavily on local support. I won't second guess the French resistance (and I don't think Gandhi would have either), but I think it is dangerous to opine what would have happened given that Germany was not really in a position to dedicate a lot of force to France (given that their military was somewhat occupied elsewhere). Both Ghandi and the French Resistance existed in cases where foreign powers were dominating, in a mixture of positive and negative ways, but where the foreign power could not reasonably dedicate significant military forces to reconquer the area. WWII effectively destroyed Great Britain as a world superpower largely due to the toll the Battle of the Atlantic had on their navy. Germans may have been ruthless (look up the night and fog decrees), and they were very careful not to allow visible resistance show up, but that itself can make it a more effective protest. They can't throw all of France in the death camps can they?
Now, things like drones are problems because they are force multipliers. If one person can control several drones at once, it means less people need to be making the decisions but I am not sure what that will mean yet.
Gandhi's tactics weren't even effective then. Look up Bhagat Singh. The only reason everyone gives credit for Indian independence to Gandhi instead of Singh is that Britain didn't want anymore Singhs.
It is easy to feel anger towards those we perceive as oppressors, but if this nascent movement (I hope it is a movement!) is to have any success, thoughts like these from Gandhi should not be forgotten:
Real noncooperation is noncooperation with evil and not with the evil doer.
Noncooperation is not a hymn of hate.
My noncooperation is with methods and systems, never with men.