Juan Cole: Protesting in Iran & Protests in General
Juan Cole has posted an account from an eye-witness at Monday's rally in Iran. I found it quite inspiring. The Iranians seem to have found a singularly powerful voice in which to express themselves.
A few posts ago the topic of the marginalization of street protests as a tool of change in the US came up. A couple of things struck me in the witness' account of the march concerning this. Most notably the contrast between humanity at its most noble vs humanity in its basest form.
Gandhi relates in his book Satyagraha (if i recall correctly...a book i recommend highly along with his 'Experiments with Truth'), the purpose and mechanism of non-violent resistance : The point is to connect at a very basic level to the people you hope to influence (both society at large and your enemies).
Gandhi starts by assuming that we are all humans, who despite whatever glaring differences are basically the same. Namely, most everyone has the capacity for empathy. By demonstrating one's earnest belief in one's cause even though it may cause inconvenience, harm, or injury to oneself, you can force even some of your enemies to ask themselves why a person would do such a thing and re-evaluate their own position. You use their empathy as a way around their biases, hate, or indifference. (That's the concept in a very rough sense anyway).
He also notes that in order for such a technique to work, it is important to act with the highest integrity. Here that means that one must practice only non-violence and that at worst one can only harm one's self (anything else is immoral no matter how good your cause is and will ultimately be ineffective). Furthermore, you can not use such techniques capriciously for emotional blackmail.
As implausible as this approach may seem, Gandhi used it a couple of times, and it seemed to work.
I'm not really doing the concept justice, but in many ways i feel that Gandhi in Satyagraha gives the most definitive and coherent statement of what it is to act morally. It is very much the capstone of the past 2000 years worth of moral development.
In any case, i think this is at least a part of what gives impact to a protest movement and in some ways is missing from latter-day protests.
A few posts ago the topic of the marginalization of street protests as a tool of change in the US came up. A couple of things struck me in the witness' account of the march concerning this. Most notably the contrast between humanity at its most noble vs humanity in its basest form.
Gandhi relates in his book Satyagraha (if i recall correctly...a book i recommend highly along with his 'Experiments with Truth'), the purpose and mechanism of non-violent resistance : The point is to connect at a very basic level to the people you hope to influence (both society at large and your enemies).
Gandhi starts by assuming that we are all humans, who despite whatever glaring differences are basically the same. Namely, most everyone has the capacity for empathy. By demonstrating one's earnest belief in one's cause even though it may cause inconvenience, harm, or injury to oneself, you can force even some of your enemies to ask themselves why a person would do such a thing and re-evaluate their own position. You use their empathy as a way around their biases, hate, or indifference. (That's the concept in a very rough sense anyway).
He also notes that in order for such a technique to work, it is important to act with the highest integrity. Here that means that one must practice only non-violence and that at worst one can only harm one's self (anything else is immoral no matter how good your cause is and will ultimately be ineffective). Furthermore, you can not use such techniques capriciously for emotional blackmail.
As implausible as this approach may seem, Gandhi used it a couple of times, and it seemed to work.
I'm not really doing the concept justice, but in many ways i feel that Gandhi in Satyagraha gives the most definitive and coherent statement of what it is to act morally. It is very much the capstone of the past 2000 years worth of moral development.
In any case, i think this is at least a part of what gives impact to a protest movement and in some ways is missing from latter-day protests.
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Faux Noose tried to boot-strap the tea parties to political effectiveness -- providing tons of free publicity and de facto organizing help. Was there anything that made the tea parties more morally appealing than the ignored much larger anti-war demonstrations?
June 17, 2009 11:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you familiar with the old robot saying, "DOES NOT COMPUTE?" I doubt morality is a big component of the Fox News decision making process given their arms-length relationship to the truth.
Thanks for reading.
June 18, 2009 3:15 AM | Reply | Permalink