Gandhi said, "Turn the F@*%ing Tables on Authority!" - (rough translation)
Yesterday was the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, b. 1869. I think I've posted this before, but: My father once insisted that Gandhi succeeded not because he advocated peace, humility, non-cooperation, and all those ideas which he largely derived from Thoreau, (as did MLK, etc). He said Gandhi succeeded because he and his minions insinuated violence against the English. I refused to cede, because: If peace as extolled by someone like GANDHI himself should prove impotent, then ALL PEACE, ALL PASSIVISM, ALL COOPERATION OR HUMANITY IS ALSO IMPOTENT. That can not be true.
I think we were both right. The spectre of mass dissent based on one man's humility can be very confusing to empire. Such coherence of will must portend something otherworldly, perhaps! To deny this, and maintain that the movement is based on nothing more than a wimpy man, the British tended, of course, to double down, and increase their buggery - as has been done by states, authorities, corporations, religions or empires down through history.
It is BECAUSE of this awe, AND this upping of the game, this intensifying and multiplying of controls, that Gandhi's peace movement could succeed. Why? because increasing violence against a non-aggressive target only increases the denial, but also the need to end the denial, in the attacker. That is, it urges the attacker to remember his own humanity, as his actions of denial become more and more cruel and unusual. Concurrently, it reveals to onlookers, pro or con, the inhumanity of the attacker, and calls upon their own humanity to oppose it.
Gandhi's movement of peace instilled the fear of mass violence in the British, in the fashion of Judo: Using the attacker's own force or weight against him. And, it increased violence from the British. Therefore, it can be said, in one sense, to have portended violence. If the British had responded with mass retaliation, then the moralisation and resistence of the Indians would certainly have turned to self-defense, or, 'violence'. But it all lay the potential blame for INNITIATION upon the British. Whoever innitiates the negative ACTION tends to get the blame in a review by moral argument.
After Gandhi's success, their came his assassination. There came great violence between the Hindi and the Muslims, ripping India into two, and then three, countries. Today, India is a well-managed basket-case of sporadic mayhem. So - violence did ensue - but the British got out before the violence.
And, I'd like to add, that Gandhi loved and respected English law and legal tradition, as well as English manners and politic. One of his greatest successes was not only in using these by turning them back on the British, but by gathering his people to honour this very CIVIL English-type approach at presenting grievances and correcting injustice. To the English, the Indians showed themselves to be equally human, civilised, and deserving of equal respect and so self-determination.
But, make no mistake, Gandhi's very polite approach was a way of sticking it to Authority. One of the very few successful ways of doing so! This is what made Gandhi a genius. We are not seeing that in modern times.
A problem with empire is that it knows no better than to bugger and bugger away, like Chinese water torture, and then like a bloody tsunami. Because of ever-forward-lurching, self-interested egos; selfish assumptions of morality; money; narcissism; bureaucratic inertia; fractive politics, and more, empire knows only to amplify habits of force further and further, to the point where they ultimately threaten the overall health of the state, which demands war. In modern times, these things we ARE seeing.
"If": When all else are losing their heads, this is the time to lead, by keeping one's own... Bald, though it may be...
How to Turn the Tables on Authority Like a F@*%ing Genius
Also, you must sleep with naked women:
How would Gandhi’s celibacy tests with naked women be seen today?
I think we were both right. The spectre of mass dissent based on one man's humility can be very confusing to empire. Such coherence of will must portend something otherworldly, perhaps! To deny this, and maintain that the movement is based on nothing more than a wimpy man, the British tended, of course, to double down, and increase their buggery - as has been done by states, authorities, corporations, religions or empires down through history.
It is BECAUSE of this awe, AND this upping of the game, this intensifying and multiplying of controls, that Gandhi's peace movement could succeed. Why? because increasing violence against a non-aggressive target only increases the denial, but also the need to end the denial, in the attacker. That is, it urges the attacker to remember his own humanity, as his actions of denial become more and more cruel and unusual. Concurrently, it reveals to onlookers, pro or con, the inhumanity of the attacker, and calls upon their own humanity to oppose it.
Gandhi's movement of peace instilled the fear of mass violence in the British, in the fashion of Judo: Using the attacker's own force or weight against him. And, it increased violence from the British. Therefore, it can be said, in one sense, to have portended violence. If the British had responded with mass retaliation, then the moralisation and resistence of the Indians would certainly have turned to self-defense, or, 'violence'. But it all lay the potential blame for INNITIATION upon the British. Whoever innitiates the negative ACTION tends to get the blame in a review by moral argument.
After Gandhi's success, their came his assassination. There came great violence between the Hindi and the Muslims, ripping India into two, and then three, countries. Today, India is a well-managed basket-case of sporadic mayhem. So - violence did ensue - but the British got out before the violence.
And, I'd like to add, that Gandhi loved and respected English law and legal tradition, as well as English manners and politic. One of his greatest successes was not only in using these by turning them back on the British, but by gathering his people to honour this very CIVIL English-type approach at presenting grievances and correcting injustice. To the English, the Indians showed themselves to be equally human, civilised, and deserving of equal respect and so self-determination.
But, make no mistake, Gandhi's very polite approach was a way of sticking it to Authority. One of the very few successful ways of doing so! This is what made Gandhi a genius. We are not seeing that in modern times.
A problem with empire is that it knows no better than to bugger and bugger away, like Chinese water torture, and then like a bloody tsunami. Because of ever-forward-lurching, self-interested egos; selfish assumptions of morality; money; narcissism; bureaucratic inertia; fractive politics, and more, empire knows only to amplify habits of force further and further, to the point where they ultimately threaten the overall health of the state, which demands war. In modern times, these things we ARE seeing.
"If": When all else are losing their heads, this is the time to lead, by keeping one's own... Bald, though it may be...
How to Turn the Tables on Authority Like a F@*%ing Genius
Also, you must sleep with naked women:
How would Gandhi’s celibacy tests with naked women be seen today?