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Can Real, Meaningful Change Ever Be Achieved Without Violence?
OK, so the theory behind the question is this. The historical record is a map of small groups of people seizing power within a society, through economic, military, political or religious means. When the rest of society wants to change things, and make them fairer, they first face the problem of how to get rid of the group currently running things. Since the group currently running things is the one with the power, it doesn't really want change. Hence, we must use violence to remove it, and in doing so become tyrants ourselves. The only break in this cycle in tens of thousands of years has been the idea of democracy, but in practical terms all democracy has done is split the groups of people trying to seize power into two or three groups instead of one, and differentiated them on ideological rather than economic or military grounds. It has ended the cycle of violence but not the problem itself.
The liberal version of "fair" in and of itself is "unfair". Giving a person a job over a more qualified person simply because of race isn't "fair". Demanding the not hard working people get as much of the pie as a hard working person is "unfair". The liberal version of "fair" is nonsense. You can change things without violence. Liberals are just too ignorent to know how.
The liberal version of "fair" in and of itself is "unfair".
Please provide some evidence to support your assertion that every Liberal has the precise same definition of fairness, which directly opposes the dictionary definition.
Oh, but you can't do that, can you? Because you are just opening your fat mouth and letting all the shit fall out, as per usual. Do you even think before you type? Or do you just smash out the random words floating around in your head?
I think he's on a mission to show everyone how much he hates liberal people.
I'm going to play devil's advocate here. I'm going to say that SOME liberals support the addressing of other power imbalances (such as racism) through positive discrimination, to give equity rather than equality (treating people according to their needs instead of treating them exactly the same).
However, the less vocal majority of liberals see it as discrimination of another form, see equity as being too subjective and argue it will just cause a greater rift between majority and minority groups.
But bronto's mistake is assuming that all liberals subscribe to exactly the same belief system, and assuming that the extreme, minority end of the spectrum is representative of every liberal everywhere.
I'm going to play devil's advocate here. I'm going to say that SOME liberals support the addressing of other power imbalances (such as racism) through positive discrimination, to give equity rather than equality (treating people according to their needs instead of treating them exactly the same).
Yes, overcompensation. It's a curious social phenomena and you're absolutely right that it does exist.
But bronto's mistake is assuming that all liberals subscribe to exactly the same belief system, and assuming that the extreme, minority end of the spectrum is representative of every liberal everywhere.
In my experience Conservatives disproportionately favour generic attacks because it means they don't have to think or address individual arguments. They like to brush everything into the same bucket because it makes the world easier to understand for them.
If we do not limit the conversation to changes in social power dynamics, then the obvious answer is "YES, violence is not required to achieve change." In fact, the vast majority of changes to human life, especially the improvements to human quality of life, have been achieved without violence
THE PLOW
-The plow drove real and meaningful change in food production, and the ability of people to become sedentary. Staying in one place (and not having to walk around carrying all our worldly possessions with us) was a pre-requisite for development of writing, development of most of the visual arts beyond rudimentary sculpture, and the development of the increasingly complex and interconnected technologies that comprise the core of how we live.
WRITING
-Writing enabled us to learn from people who predeceased us by millennia, and over that time to develop ideas of increasing complexity, including the distinction between superficial change and "meaningful" change. The core of who we are as societies and what we aspire to as individuals is shaped by exposure to the written word and ideas developed over time through reading and writing.
SCIENCE
-Writing ultimately led to the development of empiricism and the scientific method not only made possible the technologies that affect our daily physical lives in meaningful ways, but also expanded and deepened our concept of the universe and our place within it. Scientific thinking enables our native curiosity to become an engine of real and meaningful change.
HEALTH CARE
-Because of science we have vaccinations, antibiotics, refrigeration, water treatment, and the ability to live free of lice and other parasites. All these things directly impact health, life span, comfort, and all the social and emotional benefits that directly result from these things.
Because of these real, meaningful changes, we do not spend our lives in constant discomfort, perennial illness, and near-constant grief over the deaths of loved ones. Because these things radically reduced the rates of infant mortality, we name our children and form emotional attachments to them prior to them reaching two years old.
FOOD SURPLUS
-Due to the combination of selective breeding of animals and plants, improved fertilizers and pesticides, mechanical advances (tractors, etc.) and the ability to transport products long distances, has made food more plentiful than it has ever been. There are increasing concerns that the most common chronic health problems worldwide are caused by obesity.
NEAR-UNIVERSAL WEALTH
-Abject poverty is the natural state of humankind. We naturally live in squalor, malnourished and on the edge of starvation, beset constantly by disease and parasites, and in possession of nothing but what we can easily carry. The expectation of eating every day is the expectation of wealthy people.
As recently as three hundred years ago, the richest people in the world lived lives characterized by health conditions, food quality, and standards of living that we would now designate as abject poverty. There are people we now consider to be "poor," but are simultaneously classified as "obese." For the entirety of our species, obesity automatically qualified one as rich.
These real and meaningful changes were not the results of violence, but rather were achieved, in spite of violence, by changes in human thought and the free exchange and development of technology.
The whole concept of nonviolent non-cooperation is to beat the enemy in a battle of moral standing.
If you are dealing with people in a position of power and they are using that power to control and oppress the people then the best weapon you have on your side is free will.
Take Gandhi's movement for example.
They told them to carry papers with them so they burned the papers. They were making them work unreasonable hours for horrendously low pay so they all stopped working. What were they going to do, throw the whole country in prison?
First you say that liberals don't consider the arguments from conservatives because they don't think like us, but you then go on to say that you won't listen to anything that we have to say because we disagree on this one subject.
I see through all your deception and fake news. Even many liberals admit the bias in the liberal media. But there are still complete morons such as yourself denying it.
Everything I speak to is true! The Democrat Party does support no restriction abortions you mondless liar. The biased media does support the Left. They are fake news to only report what hurts Trump, but seldom report on things that hurt the Democrats.
Their witch hunt on Trump of so called collusion with russia has proven wrong, but you hear no fake news channels telling the people these faccts. They simply jump to the next rumor to hurt trump.
Snow flakes like yourself allow them to think for you. WAKE UP AND USE YOUR BRAIN!
We are through here. It is truly sickening tryng to debate deceptive Liberals.
I speak to Liberals supporting late term no restriction abortions of viable babies, and fools like you constantly talk about eggs and zygotes, and life of mother abortions, etc. etc.
YOU ARE COMPLETE RAVING LUNATICS WHO HAVE NO PROBLEM LYING TO MAKE YOURSELF FEEL YOU POSSESS SOME FORM OF HUMANITY.
The truth hurts doesn't it? Keep pretending I ban you for merely having different view points. I ban you for being hideous deceptive liars who refuse to admit what you support. There can be no debate with liars!
I really like and appreciate this answer, Wolfgang. Many great scholars have shared this perspective, including Karl Marx.
However, I am unfortunately less confident. A movement such as the one you describe requires solidarity in both ideas and action. As civilization has progressed, so has the ability of the powerful to divide the people. We have reached the point in contemporary life where a person can be persuaded, through a process of lies and deceit, to vote against his or her best interests. Capitalism itself divides us, since we must all compete for the same resources.
I believe your solution might be possible, but that it is dependent on better education of the people. Not education in the sense we currently understand it, but education in the sense of learning to think critically, learning the law of reason and when it is being abused, how to identify the various forms of deceit and fallacy etc... Without a revolution in critical thinking it is my fear that society will be kept in bondage through words and ideas rather than force.
I believe that it can, but only when information is freely shared and accessed. Throughout all human history, the most powerful weapon of any "regime" has always been the control of information. If you suppress free thought, free speech, and free inquiry, and supplant it with dogma of any kind (religious, political) then you are able to control a population. Every pyramidal society in history has done this, from the ancient Egyptians to the Medieval Papacy to the propagandas of the twentieth century, and only now, for the first time in human history, is information so abundant and available.
The internet is, for all its flaws, an information exchange the like of which humans have never seen before.
It's the final frontier for freedom, and governments know this. And this is why governments around the world are bent on censoring and controlling it, because they know how powerful a weapon it can be, either for meaningful change, or tyranny.
I like the fact that you approach the question from the standpoint that information and technology are paths to change. It redefines the parameters of power beyond the political, and includes the potential for meaningful change to include the human drive to find or create meaning through learning, ideas, and art, all of which have been advanced through the development of technology, the internet in this case.
The only break in this cycle in tens of thousands of years has been the idea of democracy...
No, you are discussing what you know of the last roughly 10,000 years of history, since the construction of Cities/States/Civilization/ect. which neglects over 95% of our history. Really, this is more of a general statement about your extreme lack of knowledge in Anthropology and/or Pre-History rather than an argument
"The only break in this cycle in tens of thousands of years has been the idea of democracy, but in practical terms all democracy has done is split the groups of people trying to seize power into two or three groups instead of one"
Yes and there you have it from the Communist Q-Head
Yes when the British ruled India they were a minority in the country itself and made local Indians do as they pleased. Indians got freedom non violently hence a small group of people with political, economic, and military influence were removed without violence
Though the Indians didn't engage in violence, their opposition did. The violence against the peaceful movement went a long way toward gaining worldwide favor for the cause of Indian Independence. So even in this case, the ends were not achieved without violence in the process. Though it was one sided.
WEll people and countries must have signed countless so called 'PEACE' treaties and called it successful but even a blind man will say otherwise. Violence is essential, violence is indispensable, but before any of you call me inhuman i refer to meaningful violence , not violence without cause but for a change. People need to be forged not advised or 'peacefully' requested to change. You can waste several years requesting people to change or take a weapon and threaten them to change, you do not need to be a genius to figure that out.The world is a child it needs to be scolded to change.
Conservatives disproportionately favour generic attacks because it means they don't have to think or address individual arguments. They like to brush everything into the same bucket because it makes the world easier to understand for them
Why would there be irony? Did I say all Conservatives or a disproportionate number of Conservatives? Do you often have difficulties with basic reading comprehension?
While it's true that your sweeping generalization was not extended to absolutely all conservatives, the irony is two fold. Collectivism is a touchstone worldview of the left going all the way back to the class analysis that Marx popularized. While it is true that conservatives also sometimes take a collectivist worldview, the individualist worldview is almost exclusively on the right, though not the entire right.
This is why identity politics is a beast of the left. This is why people on the left often argue that minorities cannot be racist. Their view of racism extends only to groups. Some on the left even argue that if you are white, the first helpful step is to admit you are racist. All while fighting for privileges to be granted to people with the right skin color or gender or lack thereof.
Though not all liberals are collectivist (Classical Liberals), collectivism is a philosophy that lies at the root of leftist politics, and always has.
It is ironic for an apparent Marxist to talk about a "disproportionate number" of his enemies preferring to argue in terms of generic attacks against groups. And then to defend the position by pointing out that you didn't include absolutely all people in the group you attack is icing on the hypocritical cake.
While it's true that your sweeping generalization was not extended to absolutely all conservatives
If it wasn't applied to all Conservatives then it wasn't a "sweeping generalization", was it? If you put as much thought into your reasoning as you do into abusing language then you might actually win a debate.
Collectivism is a touchstone worldview of the left going all the way back to the class analysis that Marx popularized.
Pardon me, but how exactly does that evidence that either Liberals, or I, have been generalising Conservatives?
At risk of repeating myself, you should take your nose out of the online thesaurus and practice how to write a coherent argument, instead of a series of spectacular non-sequiturs band-aided together to form paragraphs.
Their view of racism extends only to groups.
Pardon me, but are you fucking thick? You believe Liberals won't call you a racist if you are on your own? That's about the funniest thing I've heard so far today. Have you ever considered that perhaps "Liberals" take the concept of racism more seriously when it comes from blacks because of hundreds of years of slavery, torture, abuse and demonstrable injustice at the hands of the very twats like you who are now playing the victim?
Perhaps you would have been happier with "broad generalization". No matter.
Those on the left who do not believe black people can be racist (if they are few, they are loud) would say that I am individually racist, but not because I am. Rather, because of the group I belong to. The fact that I say I am not would be a definitional impossibility, and claiming otherwise would only prove my racism.
Whether a given liberal likes to generalize depends on how much they embrace the collectivist worldview so fundamental to the left. And I don't have to provide evidence of your generalization beyond your generalizing quote. But since you are providing more evidence:
Have you ever considered that perhaps "Liberals" take the concept of racism more seriously when it comes from blacks because of hundreds of years of slavery, torture, abuse and demonstrable injustice at the hands of the very twats like you who are now playing the victim?
You know almost nothing about me. But my opposition to you is enough to put me in the same category as "twats like me" who literally enslaved, tortured, abused, and committed various other injustices. I have said nothing that would merit being placed in this group, unless through the magic of generalization you can know my character by the group you believe I belong to.
There is no claim of victim-hood on my part. There is simply a claim that collectivist views of racism consider me to necessarily be racist. A victim would care.
As for the rest, your personal attacks don't have any substance behind them. If I took the same tactic with you, we could argue about how stupid the other is without ever discussing your weak position.
Try attacking my actual positions, rather than generally claiming I am stupid (or a racist twat) for having them.
Have you ever considered that perhaps "Liberals" take the concept of racism more seriously when it comes from blacks because of hundreds of years of slavery, torture, abuse and demonstrable injustice at the hands of the very twats like you who are now playing the victim?
I hate to burst your bubble of righteous indignation, but being descended from enslaved people applies to just about everybody. So does being descended from cultures that enslaved people.
Africans kept slaves (and in some places still do); and these were the people they sold to the European slave-traders. For hundreds of years, Berbers from North Africa made raids on British coasts and captured English and Irish people and hauled them off into slavery. The middle ages was a long exercise in widespread enslavement of the European population by other Europeans. The Quran not only permits, but endorses slavery, and the practice has always been (and still is) dreadfully common in North Africa and the Middle East. Slavery was common in Asia, Polynesia, and Pre-Colombian America (North and South).
This sad reality is one of the many weaknesses in the argument that Whites and Blacks (for example) have an unequal share of guilt and victimhood (due to historical group identity). We are all descended from people who treated each other horribly. Assigning blame for sins of people long dead onto their descendants, (and onto unrelated people you arbitrarily throw into the same category) leaves us all equally guilty, regardless of race, etc..
It makes much more sense to deal with people on the basis of how they as individuals have actually behaved, and what they as individuals have actually experienced.
Otherwise you will find yourself spouting embarrassing nonsense.
I hate to burst your bubble of righteous indignation, but being descended from enslaved people applies to just about everybody. So does being descended from cultures that enslaved people.
But it doesn't apply to everybody within the last 200 years, does it? In your random thousand year jump through history you seem to have completely brushed over the fact that racial segregation only ended in the 1950s in America. There are people still alive today who experienced it for heaven's sake. Your argument is literally the functional equivalent of: it is unfair to punish the Nazis for being mean to Jews because Germania was once invaded by the Romans, who were also mean to Jews. It's absurd.
Africans kept slaves
So what? Were the slaves these Africans kept black? Because I'm guessing yes. Does it mean white men didn't keep slaves? Does it mean African slave operations were equal in scope, size and cruelty to those of the British Empire? Again, we have this backward American logic where you believe you don't have to answer for crimes provided someone else has committed them too, in some form, and at some point in the historical record.
This sad reality is one of the many weaknesses in the argument that Whites and Blacks (for example) have an unequal share of guilt and victimhood
But as I have already explicated, it is not a weakness. It is a fallacy whereby you try to convince us that the existence of two variables, X and Y, proves that those two variables are equal. The truth is that the two variables are not even comparable because one existed in the distant past and the other is so recent that its residual effects still impact the contemporary world.
Actually my whole point is that people are only victims of specific acts that happen to them personally, and are only culpable for acts they specifically did.
Your argument is literally the functional equivalent of: it is unfair to punish the Nazis for being mean to Jews because Germania was once invaded by the Romans, who were also mean to Jews. It's absurd.
Actually my argument is that, while it is totally fair to punish the Nazis who were "mean to Jews", it is ridiculous (and unjust) to punish uninvolved Germans, or French or Finns, etc. just because we can put them in the same racial category as the Nazis.
Again, we have this backward American logic where you believe you don't have to answer for crimes provided someone else has committed them too, in some form, and at some point in the historical record.
It seems you misunderstood me. I am sorry I was not clearer. Actually, my logic is diametrically opposed to that. My logic is to point out the absurdity of holding individuals accountable for things they did not do just because the things were done by people that fit into the same randomly assigned category.
- Consider that race is a pretty random category: nobody chooses their race.
- Consider that where we draw lines between racial categories is randomly assigned, generally by nothing more than appearance. Designations of race only tell us what category most people would put us in.
Racists add various assumptions about ability, character, behavior, and entitlement to social/legal advantages or disadvantages.
- Consider that race is a very unspecific category: and it tells us nothing about who a person actually is, what they actually do, what their family history is, nor even from what gene pool they actually descend from. Obama had a White mother & African father, grew up rich in Indonesia with an Asian step-dad. None of the expectations people have about the definition of the category American Black actually apply to him, including family history. (No Antebellum slave ancestors, no Jim Crow or Civil Rights era struggles, etc.)
- Despite still being ridiculous, it would actually make more sense to use profession as our way to assign group blame to uninvolved people. Instead of blaming all White people for American slavery, blame all owners of large commercial farms. At least then we are dealing with something that was actually a factor in American slavery that people choose for themselves.
. . . one existed in the distant past and the other is so recent that its residual effects still impact the contemporary world.
So what is the dividing line in time when we stop blaming UNINVOLVED individuals and giving sympathy and additional rights to individuals who were never actually victims themselves?
How recently does something have to happen so that we know it is a just thing to hold some people accountable for things OTHER people did?
- Let's not stop at time. How close to the "scene of the crime" do people have to be to get a share of the victimhood or the blame? The same county? The same state/province? The same country? Continent? Planet?
- What if there is a white guy living in one of the 14 states that were not admitted to the United States until after the emancipation proclamation; does he share some of the guilt for slavery?
- What about all those folks whose families immigrated after the Emancipation Proclamation, or after the Civil Rights Act?
- What about people like Obama, whose only American ancestor is White? Does he get only blame, and no victimhood despite looking Black?
- Why stop at the crimes of slavery, racial terror, oppression, and discrimination. Why not include burglary, robbery, rape, and child molestation. We could hold people of the same race accountable for current crimes committed by others in their same racial category. Our nation would save BILLIONS of dollars on trials.
-
It is so much easier to deal with people on the basis of their own personal actions and experience.
More to the point, it is the only just way to deal with people.
You really think that liberals love a Communist dictator?
So by that extension we could say that all conservatives are in favor of Nazism.
No
It is more likely that you are a simple minded, ignorant, fool that only thinks in dichotomies.
Communism is what happens when a country leans to the extreme left, were as Fascism is when it leans to the extreme right. Neither one is good for the development of a healthy society.
