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Gandhi's techniques aren't really generalizable to anything else People frequently say this (right down to the cliché about how lucky he was to be facing the B

by gruseom 14y ago

Gandhi's techniques aren't really generalizable to anything else People frequently say this (right down to the cliché about how lucky he was to be facing the British), but it's obviously untrue. Gandhi's great insight was that nonviolent resistance is more effective than violent resistance. He is increasingly being proven correct. (Popular movements pretty much instantly lose their legitimacy when they turn violent.) That some authorities massacre people doesn't refute it. Let's not forget that Gandhi's techniques were considered ridiculous and guaranteed to lose by most people at the time. It was only once he won that the "obvious" position had to be revised to "well of course it worked in that situation, but..." Gandhi didn't invent these ideas but he demonstrated their practicality in a shockingly counterintuitive way. If his techniques truly weren't generalizable to anything else, they wouldn't have worked for him either.

dredmorbius 14y ago
It requires an opponent who is capable of being shamed. Hitler wasn't shameable, nor Stalin. America wasn't in fighting the native tribes in the 19th century, or the Philippines at the turn of the 20th. The Japanese at Nanking and elsewhere. The Ottoman Empire in Armenia (a matter Turkey to this day will not acknowledge or discuss), in Greece, in Assyria, and Kurdistan following WWI. China in Tibet. Britain/Australia and the aboriginal populations. Guatamala (1968-96). Pakistan (1971). Burundi (1972 & 1993). North Korea. Equatorial Guinea. Indonesian in East Timor. Agentina (1976-1983). Rwanda. Cambodia. Nonviolence is a tool. It's not the only tool. It is frequently, but not always, disproportionately successful.
- mythealias 14y ago
  Nonviolence is a simple idea. It works when majority of people stop working, enough to cause loss to a company or the ruling party. It requires that the ruling party gains it power from the working class, which was the case in British ruled India and similarly in Iran. It will fail if one nation is attacking another. It would have worked against Hitler if the German people had revolted (I guess they did not because they believed in Hitler's ideas, few minority that did not could be got rid off). Nonviolence would not have worked if British people used it against Hitler. Being shameable is not necessary (but is helpful). For example, the occupy movement in America, even though nonviolent is not successful because the companies (or the top 1%) are not losing anything. There is not enough critical mass to the movement to affect the profits (enough that they take notice).
  - flyinRyan 14y ago
    This is wrong. Nonviolence on its own doesn't work at all. Gandhi would have been forgotten by now if people like Bhagat Singh hadn't been making enough trouble to cause the venture to not be worth the cost. Martin Luther King would have failed had the black panthers not been effective with their violence (e.g. "the bomb blast heard 'round the world" mentioned in a King speech). Peaceful resistance probably was tried in Germany, but the Nazis had a habit of disappearing people who didn't toe the party line. You honestly believe the majority of people in Germany thought Hitler was wrong? It was dangerous to disagree. I don't think Nonvioence and Game Theory play nice together. Nonviolence as a complete solution strikes me as an idea that we really want to believe but isn't actually true. There are many things in this world that are bad and I would like to see changed. I'd love to be able to just be nonviolent and cause it to change but I don't think history is very kind to this fantasy.
planetguy 14y ago
I think you're confusing what you'd like to be true with what actually is true. >Gandhi's great insight was that nonviolent resistance is more effective than violent resistance. Except: that isn't true. Or rather, it's true only in certain circumstances. >Popular movements pretty much instantly lose their legitimacy when they turn violent Perhaps, but "legitimacy" and three bucks will get you a cup of coffee. Power accumulates in the hands of whoever controls large numbers of men with guns. >That some authorities massacre people doesn't refute it. Actually it pretty much does. In the contest between a nonviolent movement with "legitimacy" and a violent authority without it, the violent authority wins every time. The few times that nonviolent movements have succeeded, they have done so against a tired power that was pretty much in the process of withdrawing anyway -- the Soviet Union circa 1990 and Great Britain circa 1950.
- gruseom 14y ago
  Of course I don't mean that nonviolence beats violence every time (edit: though in fairness I do see what sounded like that). That would be magic fairy dust. The point about Gandhi is that what he did worked at all. Power accumulates in the hands of whoever controls large numbers of men with guns. If you're right, why would the military take Sharp seriously, as the article says they do? Don't they have all the guns? The few times that nonviolent movements have succeeded, they have done so against a tired power That smells like hindsight bias to me: if it works, the regime must have been "tired".
  - flyinRyan 14y ago
    Well I personally contend that it's never worked at all. Do you have any specific examples?
    - gruseom 14y ago
      Given that you credit Martin Luther King's success not to nonviolence but to the Black Panthers, who didn't even exist until 1966, I believe no example will convince you. This is one of the low points of a thread with a lot of low points. I regret posting the article. It was borderline to begin with (political, but intellectually interesting), but the toxicity of the discussion it immediately gave rise to shows that I made the wrong call. It's not just that it's toxic, it's atypically toxic – significantly more malignant than usual. HN has enough local species of weeds to tend to; this is like an ecological invasion (or would be if it got out of hand). Edit: a more positive spin is that this is a good limit case showing that the guidelines are about right.
mkramlich 14y ago
> Let's not forget that Gandhi's techniques were considered ridiculous and guaranteed to lose by most people at the time. It was only once he won that the "obvious" position had to be revised to "well of course it worked in that situation, but..." 1. First they ignore you. 2. Then they laugh at you. 3. Then you free India from them.
- gruseom 14y ago
  Hmm. You never claim that Gandhi said that, so now my pointing out that the quote actually comes from a garment union worker in 1914 and has no connection to Gandhi (other than how apropos it is) sounds even more pedantic than usual. Cunning bastard :)
flyinRyan 14y ago
>Gandhi's great insight was that nonviolent resistance is more effective than violent resistance. He is increasingly being proven correct. Citations? He wasn't even proven correct in India! It was people like Bhagat Singh who finally convinced Britian that it just wasn't worth the trouble. Do you honestly think Gandhi's peaceful protests did anything? If you had some land that you were exploiting for great profit and the only thing between you and more riches was Ghandi would you stop? Of course not, he's no threat to anything. His "great insight" guarantees he never will be. The only thing that could be problematic would be if a majority of the people you need to exploit started doing the same thing, but game theory tells us this probably won't be the case. Just shoot a Ghandi or two and most people will go back to the factories/fields. I know of no country gaining independence or changing their government without violence or the threat of violence. Of course Britain wants to claim that Ghandi had something to do with it. Hopefully next time people will be stupid enough to believe it, only resist peacefully and we can just ignore them.

by gruseom 14y ago

dredmorbius 14y ago

It requires an opponent who is capable of being shamed. Hitler wasn't shameable, nor Stalin. America wasn't in fighting the native tribes in the 19th century, or the Philippines at the turn of the 20th. The Japanese at Nanking and elsewhere. The Ottoman Empire in Armenia (a matter Turkey to this day will not acknowledge or discuss), in Greece, in Assyria, and Kurdistan following WWI. China in Tibet. Britain/Australia and the aboriginal populations. Guatamala (1968-96). Pakistan (1971). Burundi (1972 & 1993). North Korea. Equatorial Guinea. Indonesian in East Timor. Agentina (1976-1983). Rwanda. Cambodia. Nonviolence is a tool. It's not the only tool. It is frequently, but not always, disproportionately successful.

mythealias 14y ago
Nonviolence is a simple idea. It works when majority of people stop working, enough to cause loss to a company or the ruling party. It requires that the ruling party gains it power from the working class, which was the case in British ruled India and similarly in Iran. It will fail if one nation is attacking another. It would have worked against Hitler if the German people had revolted (I guess they did not because they believed in Hitler's ideas, few minority that did not could be got rid off). Nonviolence would not have worked if British people used it against Hitler. Being shameable is not necessary (but is helpful). For example, the occupy movement in America, even though nonviolent is not successful because the companies (or the top 1%) are not losing anything. There is not enough critical mass to the movement to affect the profits (enough that they take notice).
- flyinRyan 14y ago
  This is wrong. Nonviolence on its own doesn't work at all. Gandhi would have been forgotten by now if people like Bhagat Singh hadn't been making enough trouble to cause the venture to not be worth the cost. Martin Luther King would have failed had the black panthers not been effective with their violence (e.g. "the bomb blast heard 'round the world" mentioned in a King speech). Peaceful resistance probably was tried in Germany, but the Nazis had a habit of disappearing people who didn't toe the party line. You honestly believe the majority of people in Germany thought Hitler was wrong? It was dangerous to disagree. I don't think Nonvioence and Game Theory play nice together. Nonviolence as a complete solution strikes me as an idea that we really want to believe but isn't actually true. There are many things in this world that are bad and I would like to see changed. I'd love to be able to just be nonviolent and cause it to change but I don't think history is very kind to this fantasy.

planetguy 14y ago

I think you're confusing what you'd like to be true with what actually is true. >Gandhi's great insight was that nonviolent resistance is more effective than violent resistance. Except: that isn't true. Or rather, it's true only in certain circumstances. >Popular movements pretty much instantly lose their legitimacy when they turn violent Perhaps, but "legitimacy" and three bucks will get you a cup of coffee. Power accumulates in the hands of whoever controls large numbers of men with guns. >That some authorities massacre people doesn't refute it. Actually it pretty much does. In the contest between a nonviolent movement with "legitimacy" and a violent authority without it, the violent authority wins every time. The few times that nonviolent movements have succeeded, they have done so against a tired power that was pretty much in the process of withdrawing anyway -- the Soviet Union circa 1990 and Great Britain circa 1950.

gruseom 14y ago
Of course I don't mean that nonviolence beats violence every time (edit: though in fairness I do see what sounded like that). That would be magic fairy dust. The point about Gandhi is that what he did worked at all. Power accumulates in the hands of whoever controls large numbers of men with guns. If you're right, why would the military take Sharp seriously, as the article says they do? Don't they have all the guns? The few times that nonviolent movements have succeeded, they have done so against a tired power That smells like hindsight bias to me: if it works, the regime must have been "tired".
- flyinRyan 14y ago
  Well I personally contend that it's never worked at all. Do you have any specific examples?
  - gruseom 14y ago
    Given that you credit Martin Luther King's success not to nonviolence but to the Black Panthers, who didn't even exist until 1966, I believe no example will convince you. This is one of the low points of a thread with a lot of low points. I regret posting the article. It was borderline to begin with (political, but intellectually interesting), but the toxicity of the discussion it immediately gave rise to shows that I made the wrong call. It's not just that it's toxic, it's atypically toxic – significantly more malignant than usual. HN has enough local species of weeds to tend to; this is like an ecological invasion (or would be if it got out of hand). Edit: a more positive spin is that this is a good limit case showing that the guidelines are about right.

mkramlich 14y ago

> Let's not forget that Gandhi's techniques were considered ridiculous and guaranteed to lose by most people at the time. It was only once he won that the "obvious" position had to be revised to "well of course it worked in that situation, but..." 1. First they ignore you. 2. Then they laugh at you. 3. Then you free India from them.

gruseom 14y ago
Hmm. You never claim that Gandhi said that, so now my pointing out that the quote actually comes from a garment union worker in 1914 and has no connection to Gandhi (other than how apropos it is) sounds even more pedantic than usual. Cunning bastard :)

flyinRyan 14y ago

>Gandhi's great insight was that nonviolent resistance is more effective than violent resistance. He is increasingly being proven correct. Citations? He wasn't even proven correct in India! It was people like Bhagat Singh who finally convinced Britian that it just wasn't worth the trouble. Do you honestly think Gandhi's peaceful protests did anything? If you had some land that you were exploiting for great profit and the only thing between you and more riches was Ghandi would you stop? Of course not, he's no threat to anything. His "great insight" guarantees he never will be. The only thing that could be problematic would be if a majority of the people you need to exploit started doing the same thing, but game theory tells us this probably won't be the case. Just shoot a Ghandi or two and most people will go back to the factories/fields. I know of no country gaining independence or changing their government without violence or the threat of violence. Of course Britain wants to claim that Ghandi had something to do with it. Hopefully next time people will be stupid enough to believe it, only resist peacefully and we can just ignore them.