Tag Archives: Violence

Jiddu Krishnamurti, the Inner Revolution, and Why We Don’t Really Love Our Children

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(Editor’s note: on this anniversary of the birthday of Jiddu Krishnamurti [born May 11, 1895] please read and share this excellent overview of some of the key principles of his philosophy.)

By Matt Karamazov

Source: High Existence

“The mind must be utterly silent. Not asking, not hoping for experience. It must be completely still. Only then is there a possibility of that light which will dispel our darkness.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti

IS FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE POSSIBLE?

In a collection of talks given throughout the 1950’s and gathered together in the book, The Revolution From Within, Jiddu Krishnamurti stressed the urgency of staging a revolution in our thinking.

Our habitual ways of thinking have led us to where we are now, he says, and nothing less than radical, fundamental change has any hope of remaking our thoughts, attitudes, and ultimately the societies in which we live. Anything less than fundamental change is a mere modification of what has come before, and key aspects of what has come before has in turn failed a large proportion of our population.

The paradox that Krishnamurti relentlessly demands us to consider, however, is that nothing we can DO can bring about this change. We can only observe the operations of our own mind, and ask questions about everything that we think we know.

Consider the question, “Is fundamental change possible?”, the jumping-off point leading to the multitudinous questions that Krishnamurti is asking us to examine deeply.

It’s where we have to begin if we want to observe the functioning of our own minds on a level that will have real significance with respect to the outside world, and how we live our lives.

So let’s go into this question, friends, with an open mind, a mind that is open to revelation.

If we go into it with the idea that we already know the answer, then we won’t turn up anything worthwhile. This is a question with real consequences for the way we organize our societies, parent our children, and direct our lives.

We must pursue the idea of fundamental change in the same way that Jiddu Krishnamurti relentlessly posed questions to his listeners.

You’ll notice, if you read the transcripts of some of his greatest talks, that Krishnamurti asks multiple questions for every single ‘answer’ that he gives. He might answer one, only to pose three others that each attempt to get at the original question in a more nuanced way.

Krishnamurti does this because life’s biggest questions have no final answers.

Given the asymptotic nature of perfect Truth, we can only approach it by negation; by discarding what isn’t true or helpful, in an effort to move past our conditioned thinking and to achieve radical, fundamental change.

But is such a change indeed possible?

This is something that must be gone into, and not just accepted because someone has said it. It has no meaning if you just merely accept it. Arguments from authority, that common logical fallacy, have no essential relationship to perfect Truth.

Truth needs no defenders or justification.

Rather, you must ceaselessly question what you think you know, and approach life’s biggest questions from the viewpoint of someone who knows nothing. And it really is clear that we do know nothing, in an absolute sense, as we will discuss later in more depth.

If I were to ask you who you are, where you came from, where you’ll ultimately end up, and where you are right now, you would have no satisfactory answers to any of these questions. There would always be a deeper level of Truth that you could never penetrate with your limited, conscious mind.

So let’s start from the beginning…

WHAT IS FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE?

What exactly is it that we can point to as evidence that a revolution in the mind has taken place that is not simply a modification of what was there before?

It’s clear that anything that can be incrementally added  is not fundamental change. It’s a modification, and it’s improvement, but it is not the fundamental change that we are seeking.

This “adding to” the mind, such as one can achieve by reading books or watching documentaries or listening to talks is simply an incremental increase of knowledge. No matter how compelling or insightful, this newfound knowledge will always be an addition to what was there before.

While learning is important, and proper education is never a waste of time, it’s merely representative of change on the surface, and change on the surface can never lead to radical, fundamental change. What we’re really after is meaningful change.

What kind of change IS meaningful? Is only fundamental change meaningful? How do we get closer to understanding what it might look like?

Let’s first take a look at a few examples of surface change, or simple modifications, in order to get an idea of what radical change is NOT. Thereby, we can approach the idea of fundamental change via negation.

For example:

If you are unhappy, and you are trying to BECOME happy, then you have instantaneously DEFINED YOURSELF as an unhappy person struggling to overcome his or her unhappiness.

You can become MORE happy, sure, but you will always be an unhappy person, always in the process of becoming slightly more happy, adding to your happiness, instead of experiencing the radical, fundamental change that brings with it a revolution in the mind.

Happiness will always be somewhere ‘over there’ and you will always be struggling to arrive there.

That can never be said to be true happiness and fulfillment, and it is certainly not what we mean by fundamental change.

In the same way, trying to become virtuous, we never acquire virtue, but rather expand our Self in the ‘guise’ of virtue.

Simply, a man who cultivates virtue ceases to be completely virtuous, because there is a part of him that is not, a part of him that is increasing his virtue. Likewise, a man who practices humility is no longer completely humble.

And further:

When violent, the mind has an ideal of non-violence which is ‘over there’ in the distance. It will take time to achieve that state, and in the meantime, the mind can continue to be violent.

This, too, is not the radical, fundamental change which we are seeking to illuminate.

So now that we know what fundamental change is not, do we know any more about what it is?

Is it not instantaneous, unconditional freedom in the here and now? Is it not timeless, in that we don’t have to wait for it to appear?

Are there any preconditions that have to be met?

I think that we can conclude, provisionally, that we have the freedom to drop our resentments and sadness at any time we so choose.

Easy for me to type, extremely difficult for you to do. I get that.

But from our current position, we can see that it is our mind, this thing that we call the self, that is preventing fundamental change from occurring. As we get further into our discussion, we’ll have a better handle on whether or not we can discard the restraints of the self, and realize radical, fundamental change.

THE NECESSITY OF FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE

Assuming that we can become radically different than we are today, we must ask ourselves:

Is this a pursuit that’s worthwhile?

Is it necessary?

Do we need to change at all?

I think it would be obvious to many people that we DO need to see fundamental change in our societies and our patterns of social interaction.

A world in which billions of people currently live on less than $2.00/day is crying out for change.

And to be clear, that figure is, shockingly, adjusted for purchasing power. It’s not what $2.00 would buy you in a developing country, although that would be bad enough; rather, billions of people are living on what you could buy for $2.00 a day in a country like Canada or the US.

Aside: There is commendable, although insufficient, progress being made by extremely committed individuals and organizations all over the world. In fact, the World Bank recently predicted that global extreme poverty will soon fall to under 10%. To make matters more complicated, there is an ongoing debate concerning what exactly constitutes “extreme poverty.”

To say that fundamental change isn’t necessary in a world like ours is akin to being in a sinking ship and saying: “I’m sure glad the hole isn’t in OUR end!”

However, we can state rather confidently that trying to change society, while leaving the individuals who constitute that society unchanged, is a dangerous error.

Simply put, we cannot afford to be “ordinary” any longer; the challenge of the world is too great.

We are the world; we are not on the sidelines. What we are, of that we make the world, and everywhere we face real problems that demand our urgent attention.

Thus, we return to the question at hand: Is fundamental change necessary?

I think it’s clear that it is necessary, if by fundamental change within our societies we mean implementing societal structures that would do better in meeting the needs of all our world’s inhabitants.

Obviously, this is a vastly more complex problem than it even may seem at first. It has many moving parts, but we can only begin where we are. A total revolution of the mind has to start from within. Society is comprised of individuals, and radical societal change starts at the level of the individual.

Yet, most of us are so eager to reform others and so little concerned with the transformation of ourselves.

Can we not see that this whole attitude is very confused?

We often look up to those who can help us or who can do something for us, and look down on those who cannot. So we are always looking up or looking down. Cannot the mind be free from this state of contempt and false respect?

Is it even possible to look through the lens of our own confusion and get a clear picture of the idea of radical, fundamental change?

It is to this question that we now turn.

WE ARE ALL CONFUSED

“There is a path to the known, but not to the unknowable. Thus every system of finding truth breaks down.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti

Before going further in our discussion, I think it’s helpful to take a look at our own confusion when confronted with the problem and necessity of fundamental change.

We’ve asserted that it’s both possible and necessary, but what are the impediments to action? Why are we not all enlightened already? If it’s supposed to be instantaneous, why is it so difficult for us?

The answer has to lie somewhere within our own confusion.

It’s very difficult to admit to yourself that you are confused, but clearly, we are all confused.

And, truth be told, those who say they aren’t confused, are the most confused of all.

In order to be free from confusion, we would have to know that which it is impossible to know. We’d need to know where the universe in its totality is headed, we’d need to know our precise place within it, who we are fundamentally, and what we need to do with our lives.

Philosophers are good at coming up with “-isms” that seek to explain the world and its direction. We can look for answers in logical positivism, consequentialism, possibilianism, dialectical materialism, populism, liberalism, empiricism, and every other kind of ‘-ism’ that we can conceive of, but we are still going to remain confused. Every book and every teacher is only going to add to this confusion that prevents us from knowing what life is all about.

It may be that we do not know what living is about at all, and that is why death seems to be such a terrible thing. Obviously, everyone is confused about death, and many more things besides.

The whole totality of the mind is confused, and there simply isn’t a higher part of the mind which isn’t.

So how are we supposed to make sense out of all this confusion?

Is it possible to bring clarity to our naturally disordered minds?

Is there a method we can follow, or a path we can take towards clarity?

Krishnamurti explains that whenever one is confused, one must stop all activity, psychologically. Otherwise, anything new is just translated according to our own confusion.

If I’m confused, then I may read, or look, or ask, but my search, my asking, is the outcome of my confusion, and therefore it can only lead to further confusion.

We know this, but is there anything we can do about it?

The problem is not the real issue; rather, it is the mind which approaches the problem.

So, again we return to the necessity of radical, fundamental change.

We can’t keep incrementally increasing our store of knowledge and, at some distant point, realize fundamental change. So we have to drop down to the level of the mind, and see if we can’t somehow bypass the problem of incremental change altogether.

So, you see how our desire for the resolution of our confusion can never lead to fundamental change.

All solutions are based on desire, and the problem exists BECAUSE of desire.

Basically, thought is not the way out. All of our thought is conditioned, and a confused mind cannot resolve its own confusion.

You have chosen your political leaders, your religious leaders, out of your confusion.

You have chosen your career, your friends, your daily activities out of your confusion.

The books you’ve read, the experiences you’ve had, the lessons you’ve learned, have all been assimilated according to the confusion that already exists in your mind.

Collectively, we’ve established our social order based on our confusion. Our efforts to help the poor are based on our confusion. Our educational institutions are based on our confusion.

We don’t even know what we don’t know.

But…

When you realize that you don’t know, then you are beginning to find out.

THE FUTILITY OF SEEKING

“If we take this journey together, and simply observe as we go along the extraordinary width and depth and beauty of life, then out of this observation may come a love…which is a state of being free of all demand…and we may perhaps be awakened to something far more significant than the boredom and frustration, the emptiness and despair of our daily lives.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti

How do we escape our confusion?

How can we even tell when we’re not confused any more?

Is there an end to our confusion while we are still alive?

Krishnamurti’s prescription is as follows:

“Observe the activities of the mind without trying to change them or put a stop to them, because the moment you seek an end, you are back in the ‘me, not-me’ duality.

It’s the mind that is unaware of its own activities that sets up as the authority someone or something external to which we go for help, and we therefore become slaves.”

He is saying that we can bring about a transformation in ourselves only when we understand the process of our own thinking.

What is important is to understand the whole field of thought, and see if the mind can go beyond all that.

He asks, “Is thought somehow different than the mind?”

This in turn leads us to the question of, “What is the ‘self’, the center of the ‘me’ from which all activity seems to spring?”

The self for most people is a center of desires, manifesting itself through various forms of continuity.

We ceaselessly desire to perpetuate ourselves, to satisfy our cravings, and to set ourselves up as an object of specialness in a world of meaning.

None of these desires are permanent except in the memory of what we have been and would like to be, although we try to make them permanent through clinging to various ideas, perceptions, and relationships.

For those who want more, more, more, life is an everlasting struggle.

Life is one thing, and what we want is another. We get what we want, only to discover that it’s not ultimately what we wanted at all. We wanted some other thing, tantalizingly just a little further up the road.

Can we live in this world without any effort to be or become something, without trying to achieve, to reject, to acquire?

I mean, of course, without trying to become something other than your authentic self?

Can the mind cease to think in terms of continuing, of the “me”?

The concern to become something more, to become something others want you to be, is the constant preoccupation of the mind and the primary cause of its superficiality.

That much is clear. Which leads Krishnamurti to say:

“It is my mind that creates the problem, my mind being the result of time, of memory, the seat of the ‘me’, which is everlastingly craving for the ‘more’, for immortality, for continuity, for permanency here and in the hereafter. It is this uncertainty within ourselves that leads to the outward manifestations of personal ambition, the desire to be somebody, the aggressive attitude towards life.”

What we are, of that we make the world. So in order to avoid superficiality and meaninglessness, there must be ceaseless questioning.

Any conscious effort on my part to become something other than what I am, or other than what I consciously want to become, only produces still further suffering, sorrow, and pain.

A man like Jiddu Krishnamurti would never tell his listeners that education was a waste of time. However, we must never believe that our education is over, or that we have somehow reached the end of our confusion.

Everything around us tells us what to think, books and teachers included, and we must continually renew our freedom from traditional and historical thinking in every moment.

Linear thinking and the all-too-human propensity to settle for easy answers has failed the bottom 40%. It even plagues those in the so-called ‘developed’ nations who are today stricken by existential anxiety.

At bottom, acquisitiveness and greed have destroyed our potential for gratitude.

Nationalism and eschatological certitude have crippled our capacity for understanding and reconciliation.

A radical, fundamental revolution from within can restore the unrestrained lust for life that gives us our reason for being. We can revive our capacity to greedily enjoy our friends, instead of our possessions.

But so long as there is the idea of the “me” or the “I”, then there must necessarily be loneliness.

And you can’t seek the immeasurable because you don’t know what it is; hence the futility of seeking.

But, can we give up seeking? Just like that?

Can we overcome our self-directed focus and do what is just and fair? Can we live with uprightness in a world often bereft of such character?

Or, even more basically, can we love our children?

JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI SAYS WE DON’T REALLY LOVE OUR CHILDREN

“If we did love our children, we would stop all wars tomorrow, obviously. We would not condition our children. They would not be English children or American children, they would just be children.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti

If you have been following what has been discussed so far, you will see that fundamental change is absolutely critical to the dissolution of the threats to our continued existence.

Violence and suffering on a global scale can be reduced to the individual. It is the mind of the individual that approaches the problem that needs to change, and the world is made up of individuals.

Society is based on violence and comparisons, and as long as it is so, there will always be struggle within that society, not to mention all the struggles, pains, and difficulties that naturally accompany human existence. That is what Krishnamurti is driving at here.

Everything that we do is based on striving, ambition, success, achievement; but none of it is the abandonment of the self.

Granting that everyone is doing the best that they can, the best that they know how to do, how can it be otherwise that our toxic thoughts and undisciplined habits are being passed down to our children?

Our own confusion, with which we are now hopefully becoming intimately aware, cascades downward to future generations.

Parents want their children to conform to meet the demands of their insane societies, but is that education?

Since our society is not yet what it should be, why encourage our children to stay within its destructive pattern?

We are currently dependent on this pattern, but can we live without this dependence?

The insistence on one’s nationality, on race, on religious belief or any other idea, obviously separates. All of it represents the activities of the self, and its insistence on continuity and self-perpetuation. That much is clear.

We submit to authority because all of us have this inward demand to be safe, to feel secure. We have enough to think about with respect to our survival and to the “success” of our children, that we can easily settle into the acceptance of easy answers handed down to us from above. Whether that means from the state or from some religious authority.

This safety, so it seems to many, must be defended at all costs, because we have so much invested in it.

So much of our identities and our feelings of assurance of our continued survival rest on the perceived strengths of our existing institutions.

It’s here that Krishnamurti steps in with the bold and incendiary claim that we don’t really love our children.

You don’t really love your children, he says, so you sacrifice them to protect your property, to defend your State, or the church, or some other organization which demands of you certain things.

Organized religions don’t really insist that you step out of greed, envy, ruthless ambition, and cruelty. They are far more concerned with what you believe, with rituals and the rest of the confusion.

In contrast, righteousness of behavior is not something to be gained, to be arrived at, but must be understood from moment to moment in the actuality of daily living.

It requires a fundamental change in our approach to life, and constant awareness of how our actions impact others.

Krishnamurti’s own phrasing is as such:

“The man who is ceaselessly questioning, who has no authority, who does not follow any tradition, any book or teacher, becomes a light unto himself.”

Perhaps it’s radical, fundamental change that’s required to shake us out of our collective stupor and restore to us our humanity.

THE REVOLUTION

“Sirs, life is something extraordinary, if you observe it. Life is not merely this stupid little quarreling among ourselves, this dividing up of mankind into nations, races, classes; it is not just the contradiction and misery of our daily existence. Life is wide, limitless, it is that state of love which is beauty; life is sorrow and this tremendous sense of joy. But our joys and sorrows are so small, and from that shallowness of mind we ask questions and find answers.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti

If there can be any conclusion at all, it’s that freedom is not at the end; it is at the very beginning, the now.

The end is at the beginning, which lies outside of time.

Radical, fundamental change does not come at the end. Rather, it’s our starting point. If we’re not happy now, then we never will be. If we don’t remake our societies now, then we never will.

Fundamental change doesn’t occur across time, but rather it is available to us at every moment.

Revolutions of the mind occur instantaneously, at the very moment when we cease our anguished searching.

And that is what our lives often are, correct?

We say: “I am ‘this’, and I would like to be ‘that,’” but the struggle to be something different is still within the pattern of our desire.

All suffering comes from desire, and so any incremental change that we pursue throughout our lives is not only going to be fraught with confusion, but will carry with it all the attendant suffering and anguish which it necessarily implies.

So where can we find relief for this condition of the mind?

Where can we go for some form of final answer to our continued searching and relentless questioning?

In the end, we must realize that life’s biggest questions have no definite answers. Indeed, the right question has no answer.

We must also conclude that a mind that seeks peace will never find it, and thought is not the way out.

When you see that fundamental change is instantaneous, and is a function of observing the workings of your own mind, you can break free of your past at any moment, and start to unravel your own conditioning.

It’s simple: The mind can never free itself through some system or method. Anything that your mind DOES can never bring about this kind of radical, fundamental change that we are discussing.

Anything that can be KNOWN is not what we’re looking for.

All that can be left to us is to observe the functioning of our own minds.

When we realize this, we also realize the truth of Krishnamurti’s words when he says:

“To have that inward fullness of life, which includes death, the mind must free itself from the known. The known must cease for the unknown to be.”

When you don’t know what it is that you’re looking for, and you don’t know what it’ll look like when you find it, all that remains to you is to examine the operations of your own mind.

Naturally, this leads to the falling away of every answer that has been and could be given concerning happiness and fulfillment, and concerning how we should govern our societies.

Since we see that the ideas of happiness and fulfillment are constantly changing, we must ask ourselves if there really is such a thing.

We’ve been discussing the necessity and possibility of fundamental change for some time now, and if you have been following the logical progression of our discussion, you can see that observing the function and operation of your own mind without judgement is the only way out of our collective confusion.

I can also assume that you WANT to love your children, that you WANT to overcome the destructive patterns of society, and that you WANT to affirm the meaningfulness of daily life.

So what’s stopping you?

What’s holding you back from experiencing this revolution of the mind?

In the final analysis, there is nothing to do, and nothing to attain.

“When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you”

— Lao Tzu

There is no set of rules or precepts that you are required to follow, nothing that you are being asked to believe.

Rather, fundamental change is ready and waiting.

What are YOUR answers to these questions that we have been discussing? How will they impact you on the concrete level of your daily existence? Will you change?

If you don’t change now, then you never will.

All the best,

Matt Karamazov

 

 

 

International Collaboration to End Violence

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By Robert J. Burrowes

While much of the world is engulfed in violence of one sort or another
(whether violence in the home or on the street, exploitation, ecological
destruction or war), a global network of individuals and organizations
is committed to ending this violence in all of its manifestations.

With individual signatories in 100 countries and organizational
endorsements in 35 countries, each of these individuals and
organizations works on one or more manifestations of violence in their
locality and some of the organizations and networks have considerable
national or even international reach.

However, as you might understand, there is a great deal to be done and
the Charter network continues to expand as more people and organizations
are motivated to join this shared effort.

Here is an outline of what some of these individual signatories of ‘The
People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World‘ are doing. You are
welcome to join them.

A native of Iran, Professor Manijeh Navidnia was born in Tehran where
she attended school and university. She married in 1982 and had her
first child in 1985. Her original research interests were in social
science and sociology but after collaborating with the Islamic Azad
University, she became interested in strategic studies and most of her
research work and publications since then have focused on security. Her
first book in 2009 was particularly focused on ‘societal security’ and
her political engagements are designed to enhance international
cooperation across cultures.

Mahad Wasuge is a key figure at the Heritage Institute for Policy
Studies in Somalia. The Institute has recently published a shocking
report on ‘Somalia’s Drought Induced Crises: Immediate Action and Change
of Strategy Needed‘ in response to the ongoing drought in Somalia which threatens millions of people. ‘The ongoing drought in Somalia – referred to in the Somali
language as Sima, which means the leveler, ubiquitous or pervasive – has
enveloped the entire country. If rain does not arrive by mid April, and
if a massive humanitarian campaign is not mounted swiftly, the drought
could morph into an insidious famine that could devastate the country’:
hundreds of thousands of vulnerable men, women and children could starve
to death. Sadly, while awareness of the ongoing suffering and the
potential famine has been high, ‘the response of the international
community and the mitigation strategy by Somalia has been wholly
inadequate.’ Despite UN agencies raising over US$300 million, the
majority of the population across the country is not receiving basic
necessities. ‘Many pastoral communities have also lost 80 percent of
their livestock, escalating their vulnerability to an alarming and
perilous level.’

Ruth Phillips is the central figure in the initiative to create ‘an
ecological, co-housing village here on a fully restored, 17th century
chateau estate in rural France. The property lies in the heart of 30
acres of parklands and forests in the midst of quiet, deep-green nature,
surrounded by hills and mountains, forests and lakes. It is set in the
eastern Dordogne, one of most unspoilt regions of France’. They have
permission to create a permaculture village around the chateau for
residential and/or holiday use, with 23 houses blended into the natural
and historic landscape. Plans include the chateau ‘hub’ offering
education, leisure and cultural activities for residents and visitors; a
small restaurant; a multi-functional workshop space; the swimming pool;
a sauna and communal space, as well as large individual garden plots and
access to acres of forest and fields on the property. The site aims to
be a showcase for permaculture and sustainable living. Too good to be
true? Check out the Ecochateau website and email Ruth if you want to go there to stay for a while and help make their vision a more complete reality.

Burmese scholar and activist, Dr Maung Zarni has been indefatigable in
his efforts to raise awareness of the Burmese government’s genocidal
assault on the Rohingya Muslim population in Burma. He has also not
shied away from drawing attention to democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi’s
complicity in this genocidal assault. While he has written many articles
on the subject, this two-minute video will give you a clearer sense of
Zarni, the compassionate scholar/activist: ‘Multiple Denials of
Myanmar’s Atrocity Crimes against Rohingyas prevent a peaceful
resolution’. For more, check out Zarni’s website.

In one of her public talks, Kathleen Macferran posed the question ‘Are we really safer when we put those who harm others behind bars and forget about them?‘ She explores
the idea of ‘turning our prisons into houses of healing and creating connections that lead to greater safety’ by having incarcerated men and women return to our communities as peacemakers.

Greg Kleven is a 68 year-old American living and teaching English in
Viet Nam. He was 18 years old when he went to Viet Nam as a soldier in
1967 ‘and thought that what I was doing was right. But after a few
months in country I realized that I had made a huge mistake. The war was
wrong and I should never have participated.’ After going home he had a
hard time adjusting back into society. ‘I couldn’t get the war out of my
mind.’ In 1988 he went back to Viet Nam as a tourist and realized he had
a chance ‘to make up for what I had done’. For the next two years he
helped organize ‘return trips for veterans who wanted to go back and see
Viet Nam as a country, not a war’. In 1990 he started teaching English
in Ho Chi Minh City and he has been doing it ever since. Greg shares the
passion to ‘some day put an end to all wars and violence in the world’.

Professor of Mathematical Analysis, Tarcisio Praciano-Pereira, reports
from Brazil that he is personally well but that living in Brazil is
‘very bad! I am 73 years old and I have suffered the dictatorship of
1964 when I was forced into exile. So I have a very clear picture of
what is going on here and this doesn’t make
me well because I know clearly the dangers we are facing. My life has
changed entirely, my intellectual production has dropped down because I
am all the time in the fight. I am seriously afraid! And I am not a
young boy anymore as I was in 1964.’ He advised the death of a judge of
the Supreme Court, who was overseeing a massive corruption investigation
into the state oil company, Petrobras, against the will of the ‘putsch
owners’ and conservative media outlet ‘Globo’. It is clear that the
possibility of crime in this death cannot be dismissed. Now they are
trying to replace the dead judge with the Justice Secretary ‘who is
nothing but a criminal. Please take a stand against this if you can.
Afraid is the right picture, friend! Yes, Fora Temer! Fora Temer, o
traira!’

Ending human violence requires courage, not to mention toughness and
determination, often in extraordinarily difficult circumstances.

For that reason, you might be sceptical about the prospects of achieving
it.

But if you wish to join the people above in working to create a world in
which peace, justice and ecological sustainability ultimately prevail
for all life on Earth, you can do so by signing the online pledge of
‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World‘ and participating in
‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth‘.

Can we do it? If we do not try, we will never know. And one day, fairly
soon now according to some climate scientists (and assuming we can avert
nuclear war in the meantime), homo sapiens sapiens will enter Earth’s
fossil record without even making a concerted effort to prevent it.

 

Biodata: Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding
and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in
an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a
nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?‘
His email address is flametree@riseup.net
and his website is at http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com

—
Robert J. Burrowes
P.O. Box 68
Daylesford
Victoria 3460
Australia
Email: flametree@riseup.net

Websites:
Nonviolence Charter
Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth
‘Why Violence?’
Nonviolent Campaign Strategy
Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy
Anita: Songs of Nonviolence
Robert Burrowes
Global Nonviolence Network

Why Do Some Men Rape?

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By Robert J. Burrowes

A recent report from Equality Now titled ‘The World’s Shame: The Global
Rape Epidemic‘ offered a series of recommendations for strengthened laws to deter and
punish sexual violence against women and girls.

However, there is substantial evidence that legal approaches to dealing
with violence in any context are ineffective. For example, the empirical
evidence on threats of punishment (that is, violence) as deterrence and
the infliction of punishment (that is, violence) as revenge reveals
variable impact and context dependency, which is readily apparent
through casual observation. There are simply too many different reasons
why people break laws in different contexts. See, for example, ‘Crime
Despite Punishment‘.

Moreover, given the overwhelming evidence that violence is rampant in
our world and that the violence of the legal system simply contributes
to and reinforces this cycle of violence, it seems patently obvious that
we would be better off identifying the cause of violence and then
designing approaches to address this cause and its many symptoms
effectively. And reallocating resources away from the legal and prison
systems in support of approaches that actually work.

So why do some men rape?

All perpetrators of violence, including rapists, suffered enormous
violence during their own childhoods. This violence will have usually
included a great deal of ‘visible’ violence (that is, the overt physical
violence that we all readily identify) but, more importantly, it will
have included a great deal of ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’
violence as well: the violence perpetrated by adults against children
that is not ordinarily perceived as violent. For a full explanation, see
‘Why Violence?‘ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice‘.

This violence inflicts enormous damage on a child’s Selfhood leaving
them feeling terrified, self-hating and powerless, among other horrific
feelings. However, because we do not allow children the emotional space
to feel their emotional responses to our violence, these feelings of
terror, self-hatred and powerlessness (among a multitude of others),
become deeply embedded in the child’s unconscious and drive their
behaviour without their conscious awareness that they are doing so.

So what is ‘invisible’ violence? It is the ‘little things’ we do every
day, partly because we are just ‘too busy’. For example, when we do not
allow time to listen to, and value, a child’s thoughts and feelings, the
child learns to not listen to themSelf thus destroying their internal
communication system. When we do not let a child say what they want (or
ignore them when they do), the child develops communication and
behavioural dysfunctionalities as they keep trying to meet their own
needs (which, as a basic survival strategy, they are genetically
programmed to do).

When we blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate,
taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie to, bribe, blackmail, moralize
with and/or judge a child, we both undermine their sense of Self-worth
and teach them to blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame,
humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie, bribe, blackmail,
moralize and/or judge.

The fundamental outcome of being bombarded throughout their childhood by
this ‘invisible’ violence is that the child is utterly overwhelmed by
feelings of fear, pain, anger and sadness (among many others). However,
parents, teachers and other adults also actively interfere with the
expression of these feelings and the behavioural responses that are
naturally generated by them and it is this ‘utterly invisible’ violence
that explains why the dysfunctional behavioural outcomes actually occur.

For example, by ignoring a child when they express their feelings, by
comforting, reassuring or distracting a child when they express their
feelings, by laughing at or ridiculing their feelings, by terrorizing a
child into not expressing their feelings (e.g. by screaming at them when
they cry or get angry), and/or by violently controlling a behaviour that
is generated by their feelings (e.g. by hitting them, restraining them
or locking them into a room), the child has no choice but to
unconsciously suppress their awareness of these feelings.

However, once a child has been terrorized into suppressing their
awareness of their feelings (rather than being allowed to have their
feelings and to act on them) the child has also unconsciously suppressed
their awareness of the reality that caused these feelings. This has many
outcomes that are disastrous for the individual, for society and for
nature because the individual will now easily suppress their awareness
of the feelings that would tell them how to act most functionally in any
given circumstance and they will progressively acquire a phenomenal
variety of dysfunctional behaviours, including some that are violent
towards themselves, others and/or the Earth.

So what is happening psychologically for the rapist when they commit the
act of rape? In essence, they are projecting the (unconsciously
suppressed) feelings of their own victimhood onto their rape victim.
That is, their fear, self-hatred and powerlessness, for example, are
projected onto the victim so that they can gain temporary relief from
these feelings. Their fear, temporarily, is more deeply suppressed.
Their self-hatred is projected as hatred of their victim. Their
powerlessness is temporarily relieved by a sense of being in control,
which they were never allowed to be, and feel, as a child. And similarly
with their other suppressed feelings. For example, a rapist might blame
their victim for their dress: a sure sign that the rapist was endlessly,
and unjustly, blamed as a child and is (unconsciously) angry about that.

The central point in understanding violence is that it is psychological
in origin and hence any effective response must enable the suppressed
feelings (which will include enormous rage at the violence they
suffered) to be safely expressed. For an explanation of what is
required, see ‘Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening’ which is referenced
in ‘My Promise to Children’.

The legal system is simply a socially endorsed structure of violence and
it uses violence, euphemistically labeled ‘punishment’, in a perverse
attempt to terrorise people into controlling their behaviours or being
treated violently in revenge by the courts if they do not. This approach
is breathtakingly ignorant and unsophisticated in the extreme and a
measure of how far we are from responding powerfully to the pervasive
problem of violence in our world. See ‘The Rule of Law: Unjust and
Violent’  and ‘Punishment is Violent and Counterproductive’.

So what are we to do?

Well we can continue to lament violence against women (just as some
lament other manifestations of violence such as war, exploitation and
destruction of the environment, for example) and use the legal system to
reinforce the cycle of violence by inflicting more violence as
‘punishment’.

Or we can each, personally, address the underlying cause of all
violence.

It might not be palatable to acknowledge and take steps to address your
own violence against children but, until you do, you will live in a
world in which the long-standing and unrelenting epidemic of violence
against children ensures that all other manifestations of human violence
continue unchecked. And our species becomes extinct.

If you wish to participate in the worldwide effort to end human
violence, you might like to make ‘My Promise to Children’ outlined in
the article cited above and to sign the online pledge of ‘The People’s
Charter to Create a Nonviolent World‘.

You might also support initiatives to devote considerable societal
resources to providing high-quality emotional support (by those expert
at nisteling) to those who survive rape. This support cannot be provided
by a psychiatrist. See ‘Defeating the Violence of Psychiatry‘. Nisteling
will enable those who have suffered from trauma to heal fully and
completely, but it will take time.

Importantly, the rapist needs this emotional support too. They have a
long and painful childhood from which they need a great deal of help to
recover. It is this healing that will enable them to accurately identify
the perpetrators of the violence they suffered and about whom they have
so many suppressed (and now projected) feelings which need to be felt
and safely expressed.

You need a lot of empathy and the capacity to nistel to address violence
in this context meaningfully and effectively. You also need it to raise
compassionate and powerful children in the first place.

 

Biodata: Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding
and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in
an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a
nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?‘
His email address is flametree@riseup.net
and his website is at http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com

—
Robert J. Burrowes
P.O. Box 68
Daylesford
Victoria 3460
Australia
Email: flametree@riseup.net

Websites:
Nonviolence Charter
Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth
‘Why Violence?’
Nonviolent Campaign Strategy
Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy
Anita: Songs of Nonviolence
Robert Burrowes
Global Nonviolence Network

Resisting Donald Trump’s Violence Strategically

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(Editor’s note: we realize the issues addressed by the article are hardly unique to Trump and his administration but as they are the puppets currently in power, their actions and those of their controllers should be of primary concern.)

By Robert J. Burrowes

It is already clearly apparent, as many predicted, that Donald Trump’s
election as president of the United States would signal the start of
what might be the final monumental assault on much of what is good in
our world. Whatever our collective gains to date to create a world in
which peace, social justice and environmental sustainability ultimately
prevail for all of Earth’s inhabitants, we stand to lose it all in the
catastrophic sequence of events that Trump is now initiating with those
who share his delusional worldview.

Starting with the appointment to his administration of individuals, such
as Steve Bannon, Rex Tillerson and Scott Pruitt, who share his warped
view of the world, and continuing with the policy decisions he is now
implementing via executive orders, Trump threatens our biosphere with
ecological catastrophe (through climate/environment-destroying decisions
and perhaps through nuclear war) – see ‘US election: Climate scientists
react to Donald Trump’s victory’ and ‘It is two and a half minutes to midnight: 2017 Doomsday Clock Statement‘ as well as ‘Trump pledges “greatest military build-up in American history“‘ – exacerbates military violence in existing war zones – see ‘Obama
Killed a 16-Year-Old American in Yemen. Trump Just Killed His 8-Year-Old
Sister’ – increases regional geopolitical tensions in ways that inflame the
possibility of political unrest and military violence in new theatres –
see ‘Worried Over Trump, China Tries to Catch up With U.S. Navy‘ – supports violent and repressive regimes against those who struggle for liberation – see ‘The Middle East “peace process” was a myth. Donald Trump ended it‘ – and is generally implementing decisions that reverse progressive outcomes from years of peace, social justice and environmental
struggles. See, for example, ‘Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Is Likely to
Bring a Flood of Lawsuits‘ and ‘One of Donald Trump’s first moves in the White House strips women of abortion rights‘ as well as ‘President Trump Breaks a Promise on Transgender Rights‘.

Moreover, Trump, and those like him, further criminalize our right to
dissent. See ‘North Dakota Senate passes bills criminalizing Dakota
Access Pipeline protests‘.

Why does Trump ignore overwhelming scientific evidence (for example, in
relation to the climate) and want to ‘lock out’ people who are desperate
to improve their lives? Why does he want to prepare for and threaten
more war and even nuclear war?

Is Donald Trump sane?

According to Dr John D. Gartner, a practising psychotherapist who taught
psychiatric residents at Johns Hopkins University Medical School,
‘Donald Trump is dangerously mentally ill and temperamentally incapable
of being president’. See ‘Temperament Tantrum: Some say President Donald
Trump’s personality isn’t just flawed, it’s dangerous‘.

Moreover, Chris Hedges argues, Trump is dangerously violent. See ‘Trump
Will Crush Dissent With Even Greater Violence and Savagery‘.

But why is Trump ‘dangerously mentally ill’ and violent?

For the same reason that any person, whether in the Trump administration
or not, ends up in this state: it is an outcome of the ‘visible’,
‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence that they suffered during
childhood and which unconsciously determines virtually everything they
now do. In brief, Trump is utterly terrified and full of self-hatred but
projects this as terror and hatred of women, migrants, Muslims… and this
makes him behave insanely. For a brief explanation, see ‘The Global
Elite is Insane‘. For a more comprehensive explanation of why many human beings are violent, see ‘Why Violence?‘ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice‘.

So what are we to do? Well, if you are inclined to resist the diabolical
actions of Donald Trump (and his insane and violent equivalents in the
United States and other countries around the world), I invite you to
respond powerfully. This includes maintaining a large measure of empathy
for the emotionally damaged individual who is now president of the US
(and his many equivalents). It also includes recognizing that this
individual and his equivalents are the current ‘face’ of a global system
of violence and exploitation built on many long-standing structures that
we must systematically dismantle.

Here are some options for resisting and rebuilding, depending on your
circumstances.

If you wish to strike at the core of human violence, consider modifying
your treatment of children in accordance with the suggestions in the
article ‘My Promise to Children‘.

If you wish to simultaneously tackle all military, climate and
environmental threats to human existence while rebuilding human
societies in ways that enhance individual empowerment and community
self-reliance, consider joining those participating in ‘The Flame Tree
Project to Save Life on Earth‘.

If you wish to resist particular elite initiatives that threaten peace,
justice and environmental sustainability, consider planning, organizing
and implementing nonviolent strategies to do so. But I wish to emphasize
the word ‘strategies’. There is no point taking piecemeal measures or
organizing one-off events, no matter how big, to express your concern.
If you don’t plan, organize and act strategically, you will have wasted
your time and effort on something that has no impact. Remember 15
February 2003? Up to thirty million people in over 600 cities around the
world participated in rallies against the war on Iraq in what some
labeled ‘the largest protest event in human history’. Did it stop the
war?

So if you are inclined to respond powerfully by planning a nonviolent
strategy for your campaign, you might be interested in the Nonviolent
Strategy Wheel and other strategic thinking on this website – Nonviolent
Campaign Strategy – or the parallel one: Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy.

And if you wish to join the worldwide movement to end violence in all of
its forms, you might also be interested in signing the online pledge of
‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World‘.

Donald Trump has formidable institutional power at his disposal and he
and his officials will use it to inflict enormous damage on us and our
world in the months ahead.

What most people do not realize is that we have vastly greater power at
our disposal to stop him and the elite and their institutions he
represents. But we need to deploy our power strategically if we are to
put this world on a renewed trajectory to peace, justice and
sustainability.

 

Biodata: Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?‘ His email address is flametree@riseup.netand his website is at http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com

Robert J. Burrowes
P.O. Box 68
Daylesford
Victoria 3460
Australia
Email: flametree@riseup.net

Websites:
Nonviolence Charter
Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth
‘Why Violence?’
Nonviolent Campaign Strategy
Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy
Anita: Songs of Nonviolence
Robert Burrowes
Global Nonviolence Network

Review: The Utopia of Rules, by David Graeber

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By Jonathan Woolley

Source: Gods & Radicals

Reading a book about bureaucracy may not sound like an exciting way to spend a weekend off with my family. And yet, having just started David Graeber’s latest – A Utopia of Rules – when I wasn’t making tea for my elderly grandmother, I curled up in a comfy chair with this little pink book, mocked up to look like one of the forms it excoriates, and excited by each new page. Although many of the ideas Graeber presents here aren’t new, the clarity and force with which they are drawn together and set out is a rare pleasure – a contrast with turgid official paperwork that was almost certainly intentional.

Graeber – a social anthropologist, anarchist, and prominent leftist thinker, based at the London School of Economics (LSE) – develops his argument, in part, by thinking ethnographically with his own personal experiences of officialdom, beginning with a heartbreaking account of his own struggle to deal with his elderly mother’s Medicaid application. In response to this, he introduces the book as a series of short essays on different facets of what he calls “total bureaucratisation” – defined as “the gradual fusion of public and private power into a single entity, rife with rules and regulations whose ultimate purpose is to extract wealth in the form of profits”. Bureaucracy is not a simple matter of red-tape created by the state tying up private enterprise, as right-wing pundits would have us believe: Graeber points out that bureaucratic forms have become intrinsic to both private and public spheres.

While the Left has been largely unable to produce a critique of bureaucracy, the Right has such a critique – but efforts to “roll back” the state by the Right have had the opposite effect, producing even more paperwork than ever. This leads Graeber to propose what he calls “the Iron Law of Liberalism”, which states that “any market reform, any government initiative intended to reduce red tape and promote market forces will have the ultimate effect of increasing the total number of regulations, the total amount of paperwork, and the total number of bureaucrats the government employs.”

In stressing the coeval nature of the free market and an expansive state, Graeber directs his analysis away from shallow criticism of big government, towards the common institutional basis of all inequality, found at the heart of neoliberal governance. Given the extent to which the general public in the English-speaking world continue to view the expansive state and the “free” market as antithetical to one another and synonymous with the Left and the Right of politics respectively, this is an important point to make.

With the foundations laid, Graeber’s lucid prose carries the reader briskly through a sequence of stand-alone essays, each of which engages with a particular aspect of total bureaucratisation today. Each of these, Graeber claims, will need to be addressed by any critique of bureaucracy the Left might develop. Dead Zones of the Imagination utilises feminist theory of imaginative labour to develop the argument that bureaucracy – in addition to being stupid – exists to create stupidity. Its impersonal procedures, backed up by threat of violence, ensure that those in positions of authority – especially the police – are able to avoid doing the imaginative labour of empathising with others, while forcing those others to engage in imaginative labour towards the authorities, simply in order to avoid physical harm. Police insist upon being able to “define the situation” – those who contest this, rather than violent criminals, are the ones who are routinely meet with physical violence. This serves to emphasise a very basic point: don’t underestimate the importance of physical violence, even if it takes place behind a veil of paper.

In Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit, Graeber turns his attention to the trajectory of technological development in the modern world. Why is it, he asks, that in the 1950s we were able to explore space, and expected to be surrounded by robotic servants and flying cars by now, but that this awesome potential has not been realised? The answer, he suggests, is that rather than cause social change by itself, the direction of technological innovation is directed by financial interests – so that instead of pursuing automation and space travel that could disrupt existing economic relations on Earth, major funders have prioritised less disruptive research lines, such as information technology. The greatest achievement of the late 20th century – the Internet – is revealed as decidedly chimeric; both a tool for enhanced communication, but also a means of surveillance and manipulation on an industrial scale. The promise of technology has been broken in favour of labour discipline and social control; R&D budgets have been slashed in favour of boosting executive pay and shareholder dividends. Instead of being allowed to pursue their research interests, academics are increasingly forced to spend more and more of their time doing paperwork. Rather than a driver of social change, technology is itself subject to the demands of capital.

The Utopia of Rules, or Why We Really Love Bureaucracy After All concludes the triptych, by exploring the ways in which bureaucracy can, in fact, be deeply enchanting – when it works well – providing human beings with a sense of predictability and certainty that can be deeply seductive. While the second essay uses science fiction to reflect upon the curious falling short of innovation, this essay turns to magic and fantasy fiction in an attempt to understand how the appeal of bureaucratic rationality is generated. Graeber argues that the elaborate angelic hierarchies and formulaic modes of ritual address, developed in the Rennaissance but that now enliven Western Ceremonial Magic, actually reflect a political imaginary – a vision of the chaotic, violent world of the Middle ages reordered according to a spiritualised version of the old, lost, Roman bureaucracy. Nowadays, however, this vision is inverted – fantasy fiction today constructs a pseudo-Medieval world, where bureaucracy is almost entirely absent, where creativity is directly channelled into reality via magic, and where leadership is acquired on the basis of personal virtue and conquest, rather than through impersonal qualification or graduate recruitment. However, while giving us an opportunity to vicariously enjoy a world without bureaucracy, medievalist fantasies – with their perennial sense of threat and danger – nonetheless reinforce our sense that it’s probably preferable to live with the devil we know. Just as the gruesome spectacle of Gladitorial combat both beguiled and repulsed the populace of Rome from the idea of democracy, the blood-soaked cities of Westeros instil in us a fear of a world without bureaucratic order.

Perhaps the most fascinating contestation made by Graeber – albeit, only in passing – is that bureaucratic rationality rests upon a resolutely spiritual set of commitments. The idea that numbers and their rational appraisal can help one to understand and manipulate reality, reaches back to the Pythagoreanism of ancient Greece. They, in turn, directly inspired Plato, the father of Western formalism, and in turn the Medieval angelic hierarchies mentioned above. This commitment to the power of logic and pure numbers conferred upon bureaucracy a utopian air; bureaucrats envision a world of perfect harmony, governed by well-designed, efficient institutions, and develop frameworks that attempt to make that world a reality. The fact that the complexity of the world-as-lived rarely fits these lofty ideals ensures that bureaucracy requires constant enforcement – with the force in question being the threat of violence meted out by private security, the police or the military.

But it is in the Appendix – Batman and the Problem of Constituent Power – that we find some of Graeber’s most timely observations for the present moment. In a playful analysis of the cultural and political significance of superheroes, Graeber points out that – building upon his analysis of medievalist fantasy in the previous chapter – comics teach the same kind of lesson. In pitting basically passive superheroes who seek to preserve the status quo against endlessly creative and scheming villains who wish to unseat it, comics allow the reader to vicariously enjoy the thrill of unfettered creative potential, only to enforce the idea that such potential necessarily leads to violence, and that violence is in turn the only way that it can be controlled.

In the Marvel and DC Universes, the only alternative to bureaucracy is violent creativity of villains – in short, fascism. This, in turn, allows Graeber to highlight a broad distinction between the left and the right: “Ultimately, the division between left-and right-wing sensibilities turns on one’s attitude towards the imagination. For the Left, imagination, creativity, by extension production, the power to bring new things and new social arrangements into being, is always to be celebrated. It is the source of all real value in the world. For the Right, it is dangerous; ultimately, evil. The urge to create is also a destructive urge. This kind of sensibility was rife in the popular Freudianism of the day [1950s]: where the Id was the motor of the psyche, but also amoral; if really unleashed, it would lead to an orgy of destruction. This is also what separates conservatives from fascists. Both agree that the imagination unleashed can only lead to violence and destruction. Conservatives wish to defend us against that possibility. Fascists wish to unleash it anyway. They aspire to be, as Hitler imagined himself, great artists painting with the minds, blood, and sinews of humanity.”

Following from the magistral philosophical treatise Debt: The First 5,000 years (2011), The Utopia of Rules is a more modest project. Graeber does not attempt to propose a leftist critique of total bureaucratisation within its pages, though he argues such a critique is long overdue. Nor does he advance a singular argument – his goal is simply to prompt a conversation. With the rise of the populist right, this conversation is more important than ever. The mainstream Left, Graeber points out, has for too long positioned itself on the side of state control, leaving critiques of bureaucracy to the Right. As the pro-market efforts of neoliberalism have done nothing but concentrate capital in the hands of the rentier classes, the frustration is now boiling over. And yet, in unveiling the mystical roots of stultifying modern paperwork, Graeber reveals a way forward for us – if total bureaucratisation is a spell laid over the world, that spell may be broken. We need not live out the fevered dreams of Renaissance mystics; we can awaken. Nor shall the dark blood and bone portraits of fascists necessarily hold sway over the human imagination, for the Left is just as creative as the right; indeed, unlike them, we can create without fear of creativity. The Right may aspire to break this world, but it is the birthright of the Left to make a better one.

Nonviolent Action: Why and How it Works

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Nonviolent action is extremely powerful.

Unfortunately, however, activists do not always understand why
nonviolence is so powerful and they design ‘direct actions’ that are
virtually powerless.

I would like to start by posing two questions. Why is nonviolent action
so powerful? And why is using it strategically so transformative?

When an activist group is working on an issue – such as a national
liberation struggle, war, the climate catastrophe, violence against
women and/or children, nuclear weapons, drone killings, rainforest
destruction, encroachments on indigenous land – they will often plan an
action that is intended to physically halt an activity, such as the
activities of a military base, the loading of a coal ship, the work of a
bulldozer, the building of an oil pipeline. Their plan might also
include using one or more of a variety of techniques such as locking
themselves to a piece of equipment (‘locking-on’) to prevent it from
being used. Separately or in addition, they might use secrecy both in
their planning and execution so that they are able to carry out the
action before police or military personnel prevent them from doing so.

Unfortunately, the focus on physical outcomes (including actions such as
‘locking-on’ and its many equivalents), and the secrecy necessary to
carry out their plan, all functionally undermine the power of their
action. Why is this? Let me explain how and why nonviolent action works
so that it is clear why any nonviolent activist who understands the
dynamics of nonviolent action is unconcerned about the immediate
physical outcome of their action (and what is necessary to achieve
that).

If you think of your nonviolent action as a physical act, then you will
tend to focus your attention on securing a physical outcome from your
planned action: to prevent the military from occupying a location, to
stop a bulldozer from knocking down trees, to halt the work at an oil
terminal or nuclear power station, to prevent construction equipment
being moved on site. Of course, it is simple enough to plan a nonviolent
action that will do any of these things for a period of time and there
are many possible actions that might achieve it.

But if you pause to consider how your nonviolent action might have
psychological and political impact that leads to lasting or even
permanent change on the issue in question but also society as a whole,
then your conception of what you might do will be both expanded and
deepened. And you will be starting to think strategically about what it
means to mobilise large numbers of people to think and behave
differently.

After all, whatever the immediate focus of your action, it is only ever
one step in the direction of more profound change. And this profound
change must include a lasting change in prevailing ideas and a lasting
change in ‘normal’ behaviour by substantial (and perhaps even vast)
numbers of people. Or you will be back tomorrow, the day after and so on
until you get tired of doing something without result, as routinely
happens in campaigns that ‘go nowhere’ (as so many do).

So why does nonviolent action work?

Fundamentally, nonviolent action works because of its capacity to create
a favourable political atmosphere (because of, for example, the way in
which activist honesty builds trust), its capacity to create a
non-threatening physical environment (because of the nonviolent
discipline of the activists), and its capacity to alter the human
psychological conditions (both innate and learned) that make people
resist new ideas in the first place. This includes its capacity to
reduce or eliminate fear and its capacity to ‘humanise’ activists in the
eyes of more conservative sections of the community. In essence,
nonviolent activists precipitate change because people are inspired by
the honesty, discipline, integrity, courage and determination of the
activists – despite arrests, beatings or imprisonment – and are thus
inclined to identify with them. Moreover, as an extension of this, they
are inclined to change their behaviour to act in solidarity.

It is for this reason too that a nonviolent action should always make
explicit what behavioural change it is asking of people. Whether
communicated in news conferences or via the various media, painted on
banners or in other ways, a nonviolent action group should clearly
communicate powerful actions that individuals can take. For example, a
climate action group should consistently convey the messages to ‘Save
the Climate: Become a Vegan/Vegetarian’, ‘Save the Climate: Boycott
Cars’ and, like a rainforest action group, ‘Don’t Buy Rainforest
Timber’. A peace group should consistently convey such messages as
‘Don’t Pay Taxes for War’ and ‘Divest from the Weapons Industry’ (among
many other possibilities). Groups resisting the nuclear fuel cycle and
fossil fuel industry in their many manifestations should consistently
convey brief messages that encourage reduced consumption and a shift to
more self-reliant renewable energies. See, for example, ‘The Flame Tree
Project to Save Life on Earth’. Groups struggling to defend or reinstate indigenous sovereignty should convey compelling messages that explain what people can do in their particular context.

It is important that these messages require powerful personal action,
not token responses. And it is important that these actions should not
be directed at elites or lobbying elites. Elites will fall into line
when we have mobilized enough people so that they are compelled to do as
we wish. And not before. At the end of the Salt March in 1930 Gandhi
picked up a handful of salt on the beach at Dandi. This was the signal
for Indians everywhere to start collecting their own salt in violation
of British law. In subsequent campaigns Gandhi called for Indians to
boycott British cloth and make their own khadi (handwoven cloth). These
actions were strategically focused because they undermined the
profitability of British colonialism in India and nurtured Indian
self-reliance.

A key reason why Mohandas K. Gandhi was that rarest of combinations – a
master nonviolent strategist and a master nonviolent tactician – was
because he understood the psychology of nonviolence and how to make it
have political impact. Let me illustrate this point by using the
nonviolent raid on the Dharasana salt works, the nonviolent action he
planned as a sequel to the more famous Salt March in 1930.

On 4 May 1930 Gandhi wrote to Lord Irwin, Viceroy of India, advising his
intention to lead a party of nonviolent activists to raid the Dharasana
Salt Works to collect salt and thus intervene against the law
prohibiting Indians from collecting their own salt. Gandhi was
immediately arrested, as were many other prominent nationalist leaders
such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel.

Nevertheless, having planned for this contingency, under a succession of
leaders (who were also progressively arrested) the raid went ahead as
planned with hundreds of Indian satyagrahis (nonviolent activists)
attempting to nonviolently invade the salt works. However, despite
repeated attempts by these activists to walk into the salt works during
a three week period, not one activist got a pinch of salt! Moreover,
hundreds of satyagrahis were injured, many receiving fractured skulls or
shoulders, and two were killed.

But an account of the activists’ nonviolent discipline, commitment and
courage – under the steel-tipped lathi (baton) blows of the police – was
reported in 1,350 newspapers around the world. As a result, this
nonviolent action – which ‘failed’ to achieve the stated physical
objective of seizing salt – functionally undermined support for British
imperialism in India. For an account of the salt raids at Dharasana, see
Thomas Weber. ‘”The Marchers Simply Walked Forward Until Struck Down”:
Nonviolent Suffering and Conversion’

If the activists had been preoccupied with the physical seizure of salt
and, perhaps, resorted to the use of secrecy to get it, there would have
been no chance to demonstrate their honesty, integrity, courage and
determination – and to thus inspire empathy for their cause – although
they might have got some salt! (Of course, if salt had been removed
secretly, the British government could, if they had chosen, ignored it:
after all, who would have known or cared? However, they could not afford
to let the satyagrahis take salt openly because salt removal was illegal
and failure to react would have shown the salt law – a law that
represented the antithesis of Indian independence – to be ineffective.)

In summary, nonviolent activists who think strategically understand that
strategic effectiveness is unrelated to whether or not the action is
physically successful (provided it is strategically selected,
well-designed so that it elicits one or other of the intended responses,
and sincerely attempted). Psychological, and hence political, impact is
gained by demonstrating qualities that inspire others and move them to
act personally too. For this reason, among several others, secrecy (and
the fear that drives it) is counterproductive if strategic impact is
your intention.

If you are interested in planning effective nonviolent actions, a
related article also explains the vital distinction between ‘The
Political Objective and Strategic Goal of Nonviolent Actions’.

And if you are concerned about violent military or police responses,
have a look at ‘Nonviolent Action: Minimizing the Risk of Violent
Repression’.

For those of you who are interested in planning and acting strategically
in your nonviolent struggle, whatever its focus, you might be interested
in one or the other of these two websites: Nonviolent Campaign Strategy and Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy.

And if you are interested in being part of the worldwide movement to end
all violence, you are welcome to sign the online pledge of ‘The People’s
Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’.

Struggles for peace, justice, sustainability and liberation often fail.
Almost invariably, this is due to the failure to understand the
psychology, politics and strategy of nonviolence. It is not complicated
but it requires a little time to learn.

 

Biodata: Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?‘ His email address is flametree@riseup.netand his website is at http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com

Robert J. Burrowes
P.O. Box 68
Daylesford
Victoria 3460
Australia
Email: flametree@riseup.net

Websites:
Nonviolence Charter
Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth
‘Why Violence?’
Nonviolent Campaign Strategy
Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy
Anita: Songs of Nonviolence
Robert Burrowes
Global Nonviolence Network

Seeking the True Path

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Cartoon by Loren Fishman. See more of his work at https://humoresquecartoons.com

Robert J. Burrowes

One of the more subtle manifestations of the intimate link between
(unconscious) human emotions and behaviour is illustrated by the simple
concept of choice and how this is so often reduced to a dichotomy
between two bad options. In such circumstances, most people choose
whatever they consider to be ‘the lesser evil’.

But how often are there only two options, even if they appear ‘good’ and
‘bad’? Frankly, I cannot think of one circumstance in which my choices
are limited to two, however good or bad they appear to be.

Why does this belief in just two options arise?

When we are born, our evolutionary inheritance includes a phenomenally
powerful capacity to feel a complex range of emotions. However, because
what sociologists refer to as ‘socialization’ (a process by which babies
and children are supposedly taught the ways of their society) is
actually a process of terrorizing babies and children into suppressing
their awareness of these emotions so that they can be forced to conform
to societal ‘norms’ (no matter how dysfunctional), the disastrous
outcomes of ‘socialization’ are obscured. If you wish to read more about
the terrorization of children, you can do so in ‘Why Violence?‘ and
‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice‘.

This terrorizing of babies and children takes many forms but one of the
most common ways it occurs is through simply telling a child what they
must do under threat of punishment for non-compliance which all parents,
teachers, religious figures and other adults do routinely. This
imperative to obey will always run counter to the child’s own Self-will.
Why is this? Because every single human baby is genetically programmed
to follow their own Self-will, not to obey the will of another.

This individual Self-will is generated by the integrated sense of how to
behave in response to the mental and physical feedback – including
feelings, thoughts, memory, conscience, sensory perception (sight,
smell, sound, touch, taste), truth register, intuition… – which each
person receives and which their mind processes and integrates to
crystallise the precisely appropriate behaviour in any given
circumstance.

But once a child is routinely terrorized into submitting to the will of
another – no matter how benign either the person giving the instruction
or the instruction itself – they lose trust and faith in their own
capacity to decide on a course of action and undertake it powerfully.
They are now adrift without clear internal guidance and, as they grow
up, they are now readily vulnerable to the ‘persuasion’ of others
whether it be the opinion of someone else, the advice of an ‘expert’ or
the inanity of an advertisement for a commercial product.

Adrift from their own unique and powerful internal mental processor –
with its emotional, intellectual, sensory, intuitive, memory, conscience
and other components – they are the victim of their own fear of being
disobedient, wrong, in the minority, isolated … if they follow their own
Self-will.

Unconsciously, the child feels trapped. They are terrified to do what
they want without permission (which is routinely denied) but
unconsciously angry about this (because they have been scared out of
being openly angry at their parents and teachers) which usually
manifests as something powerless such as resentment.

What does the child do in this circumstance? Obey the parent/teacher or
attempt to follow their own Self-will and risk (and probably receive)
punishment for doing so? What is the ‘good’ option here? Or is the child
faced with a choice between two evils and must try to choose the
‘lesser’ one? In the words of Anita McKone: ‘It feels like you must
either put up with abuse or die.’

Routine abuse of the child in this manner by their parents, teachers and
other adults throughout their early life leaves virtually all adults
with an unconscious belief that life is a series of choices between
‘lesser evils’ with an occasional ‘good’ choice allowed in limited
circumstances. We might choose our meal, the color and style of our
clothing, what film to watch and other such trivia. But what of anything
important? No way!

Most people end up believing that there are only ever two choices on
anything that matters and neither is particularly desirable.
Unconsciously, they feel trapped and it makes no sense when they are
told that they have many options from which to choose. This is not their
experience and it just feels untrue. They will endlessly choose the
lesser evil of two bad options on virtually everything that matters in
their life and accept the trinket ‘goods’ they are allowed to choose,
such as the nature of their hairstyle.

Long before adulthood, the child accepts a lifepath of conformity to the
most mundane human existence imaginable: school, work, the occasional
holiday, illness and death. A life never lived.

In essence, the terrorized child, now an adult, never looks beyond the
choices given, even when both are ‘bad’ or one is trivially ‘good’.

Most people have no sense of their own Self-will in the profound sense,
no faith in where this Self-will might take them if followed and, if
they could/can feel it, no courage to do what their Self-will tells
them.

The tragedy of virtually every human life is that they never seek out
what was taken from them as a child: the Self-will that would guide them
unerringly to seek out and become everything they were born to be. They
are so full of fear, self-hatred and powerlessness as a result of the
violence they suffered as a child, that they endlessly settle for ‘the
lesser evil’ on anything important and settle for trinkets in the form
of ‘good’: the choice of ice-cream flavour, the color of their socks,
the novel to read, the holiday destination.

Is there a way out? Yes, but it requires you to feel your fear, anger,
sadness and other feelings at what has happened to you until you are
powerful enough to reject both/all ‘bad’ options and to refuse the
trinkets that parody ‘good’. And to ask ‘What do I want?’ It is only by
consciously and deliberately rejecting all ‘lesser evil’ options that
the magnificent array of incredible opportunities which you have never
contemplated/discovered will open before you to choose as you wish.

And that is why it is so difficult. You must have the courage to cut
off, without the option of turning back, all options that do not give
you what you need. This is because what matters is not whether you get
what you need in the short term, but whether you live your truth, no
matter how difficult this might be in the immediate sense.

It is the fear of burning all bridges that holds us back because, as a
child, we were too scared to walk out on those who told us, one way or
another, that we had no choice but to suffer their abuse or die.

But the more bridges you burn, the more magnificent will be the vista of
undreamt opportunities that will open before you. And you will wonder
why you never considered/saw them before. Imagine if everyone had the
courage to burn the bridges of fear and to set out on their own unique
path.

And to experience the sheer joy of living powerfully in every moment of
their life.

But our own personal effort does not need to exclude the possibility of
making it easier for others in future too. So if you would like to
participate in the ongoing effort to create a world in which living
powerfully is more possible for each of us, you are welcome to consider
signing the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World‘.

If people are not afraid of violence, they are genuinely free to seek
their true path.

 

Biodata: Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?‘ His email address is flametree@riseup.netand his website is at http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com

Robert J. Burrowes
P.O. Box 68
Daylesford
Victoria 3460
Australia
Email: flametree@riseup.net

Websites:
Nonviolence Charter
Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth
‘Why Violence?’
Nonviolent Campaign Strategy
Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy
Anita: Songs of Nonviolence
Robert Burrowes
Global Nonviolence Network

Punishment is Violent and Counterproductive

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By Robert J. Burrowes

Punishment is a popular pastime for humans. Parents punish children. Teachers punish students. Employers punish workers. Courts punish lawbreakers. People punish each other. Governments punish ‘enemies’. And, according to some, God punishes evildoers.

What is ‘punishment’? Punishment is the infliction of violence as revenge on a person who is judged to have behaved inappropriately. It is a key word we use when we want to obscure from ourselves that we are being violent.

The violence inflicted as punishment can take many forms, depending on the context. It might involve inflicting physical injury and/or pain, withdrawal of approval or love, confinement/imprisonment, a financial penalty, dismissal, withdrawal of rights/privileges, denial of promised rewards, an order to perform a service, banishment, torture or death, among others.

Given the human preoccupation with punishment, it is perhaps surprising that this behaviour is not subjected to more widespread scrutiny. Mind you, I can think of many human behaviours that get less scrutiny than would be useful.

Anyway, because I am committed to facilitating functional human behaviour, I want to explain why using violence to ‘punish’ people is highly dysfunctional and virtually guarantees an outcome opposite to that intended.

Punishment is usually inflicted by someone who makes a judgment that another person has behaved ‘badly’ or ‘wrongly’. At its most basic, disobedience (that is, failure to comply with elite imposed norms) is often judged in this way, whether by parents, teachers, religious figures, lawmakers or national governments.

But is obedience functional or even appropriate?

Consider this. In order to behave optimally, the human organism requires that all mental functions – feelings, thoughts, memory, conscience, sensory perception (sight, sound, touch, smell, taste), truth register, intuition… – must be developed and readily involved, without interference, in our life. If this happens, then all of these individual functions will play an integrated role in determining our behaviour in any given circumstance. This is a very sophisticated mental apparatus that has evolved over billions of years and if it was allowed to function without interference in each individual, human beings would indeed be highly functional.

So where does obedience fit into all of this? It doesn’t. A child is genetically programmed to seek to meet their own needs, not obey the will of another. And they will behave functionally in endeavouring to meet these needs unless terrorized out of doing so. Moreover, they will learn to meet their own needs, by acting individually in some circumstances and by cooperating with others when appropriate, if their social environment models this.

However, if a child is terrorized into being obedient – including by being punished when they are not – then the child will have no choice but to suppress their awareness of the innate mental capacities that evolved over billions of years to guide their behaviour until they have ‘learned’ what they must do to avoid being punished. For a fuller explanation of this, see ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and
Practice’.

Unfortunately, as you can probably readily perceive, this process of terrorizing a child into suppressing their awareness of what they want to do so that they do what someone else directs is highly problematical. And it leads to a virtually infinite variety of dysfunctional
behaviours, even for those who appear to have been successfully ‘socialized’ into performing effectively in their society. This is readily illustrated.

Perhaps the central problem of terrorizing individuals into obedience of conventions, commands, rules and the law is that once the individual has been so terrorized, it is virtually impossible for them to change their behaviour because they are now terrified of doing so. If the obedient behaviours were functional in the circumstances then, apart from the obviously enormous damage suffered by the individual, there would be no other adverse social or environmental consequences.

Unfortunately, when all humans have been terrorized into behaving dysfunctionally on a routine basis (in the Western context, for example, by engaging in over-consumption) then changing their behaviour, even in the direction of functionality, is now unconsciously associated with the fear of violence (in the form of punishment) and so desirable behavioural change (in the direction of reduced consumption, for example) is much more difficult. It is not just that many Western humans are reluctant to reduce their consumption in line with environmental (including climatic) imperatives, they are unconsciously terrified of
doing so.

By now you might be able to see the wider ramifications of using violence and threats of violence to force children into being obedient. Apart from terrorizing each child into suppressing their awareness of their innate mental capacities, we create individuals whose entire (unconscious) ‘understanding’ of human existence is limited to the notion that violence, mislabeled ‘punishment’, drives socialization and society.

As just one result, for example, most people consider punishment to be appropriate in the context of the legal system: they expect courts to inflict legally-sanctioned violence on those ‘guilty’ of disobeying the law. As in the case of the punishment of children, how many people ask ‘Does violence restore functional behaviour? Or does it simply inflict violence as revenge? What do we really want to achieve? And how will we achieve that?’

Fundamentally, the flaw with violence as punishment is that violence terrifies people. And you cannot terrorize someone into behaving functionally. At very best, you can terrorize someone into changing their behaviour in an extremely limited context and/or for an extremely limited period of time. But if you want functional and lasting change in an individual’s behaviour, then considerable emotional healing will be necessary. This will allow the suppressed fear, anger, sadness and other feelings resulting from childhood terrorization to safely resurface and be expressed so that the individual can perceive their own needs and identify ways of fulfilling them (which does not mean that they will be obedient). For an explanation of what is required, see ‘Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening’ which is referenced in ‘My Promise to Children‘.

So next time you hear a political leader or corporate executive advocating or using violence (such as war, the curtailment of civil liberties, an economically exploitative and/or ecologically destructive initiative), remember that you are observing a highly dysfunctionalized individual. Moreover, this dysfunctional individual is a logical product of our society’s unrelenting use of violence, much of it in the form of what is euphemistically called ‘punishment’, against our children in the delusional belief that it will give us obedience and hence social control.

Or next time you hear a public official, judge, terrorist or police officer promising ‘justice’ (that is, retribution), remember that you are listening to an emotionally damaged individual who suffered enormous violence as a child and internalized the delusional message that ‘punishment works’.

You might also ponder how bad it could be if we didn’t require obedience and use punishment to get it, but loved and nurtured children, by listening to them deeply, to become the unique, enormously loving and powerful individuals for which evolution genetically programmed them.

I am well aware that what I am suggesting will take an enormous amount of societal rethinking and a profound reallocation of resources away from violent and highly profitable police, legal, prison and military systems. But, as I wrote above, I am committed to facilitating functional human behaviour. I can also think of some useful ways that we could allocate the resources if we didn’t waste them on violence.

If you share this commitment and working towards this world appeals to you too, then you are welcome to consider participating in the fifteen-year strategy outlined in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth‘ and to consider signing the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World‘.

Punishment can sometimes appear to get you the outcome you want in the short term. The cost is that it always moves you further away from any desirable outcome in the long run.

 

Biodata: Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?‘ His email address is flametree@riseup.netand his website is at http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com

Robert J. Burrowes
P.O. Box 68
Daylesford
Victoria 3460
Australia
Email: flametree@riseup.net

Websites:
Nonviolence Charter
Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth
‘Why Violence?’
Nonviolent Campaign Strategy
Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy
Anita: Songs of Nonviolence
Robert Burrowes
Global Nonviolence Network