Limitations on the Ethics of Nonviolence

A common response among some New Thought leaders to people who raise ethical issues with political overtones is to quote or paraphrase the words of Gary Simmons in his book The ‘I’ of the Storm: "There is no one and nothing against you."[1] The “no one and nothing is against you” premise seems to flow from a belief that God is all there is, therefore actions to oppose perceived evil in the world are unnecessary and counter-productive. An action or idea is neither good nor bad; it is what it is.[2] While understanding the positions taken by others is necessary to any kind of productive dialogue, the claim that all ethical propositions are created equal is a trapdoor into antinomianism.[3]

History is benchmarked by the tombstones of evil practices: African slavery in the New World, genocide against the indigenous peoples of North and South America by European immigrants, Nazism, Stalinism, Jim Crow laws and segregation in the USA. All of these were hotly debated and people stood passionately on both sides of the issues. Today we can understand only with difficulty how any moral person could argue in favor of slavery, which testifies to the triumph of truth over error belief. Slavery had to be defeated, which meant some people who passionately stood for slavery also had to be defeated because they were wrong. Not necessarily killed, abused or imprisoned—but clearly defeated.

Both Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. understood that existential evil must be opposed, not accommodated. Whether there is any actual metaphysical force of evil in the cosmos is clearly irrelevant when slave owners are hunting runaways with bloodhounds or their spiritual descendants are unleashing police dogs on peaceful civil rights protesters to obstruct integration. While the non-violent protests of Indians for freedom from British rule and civil rights marchers against racial injustice in the USA and South Africa were successful, some ethicists believe there are times when evil (error-belief) becomes so powerful, dominant and ruthless that the only appropriate response is violent resistance. Marches ended segregation; it took a bloody Civil War to end slavery.

Some would argue that circumstances change the kind of response which is appropriate. Gandhi and King were essentially using the power of public opinion against a governmental system which saw itself as lawful and just. When Americans saw the water hoses and police dogs unleashed against children and peaceful adult demonstrators, the backlash of shame did much to sweep aside decades of prejudicial public policies. However, peaceful protestors marching against a totalitarian regime which has no such moral scruples to embarrass might be considered pointless, as Chinese pro-democracy demonstrators discovered in their 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Estimates of eight hundred deaths and countless arrests point to the power of repressive, amoral regimes. Whether China will come to democracy by evolution or revolution—if freedom comes at all—has yet to be determined. Examples of this phenomenon of violent oppression are sadly too common.

During World War II, German theologian and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer made the long journey from pacifism to tyrannicide. He wrote to friends:

“If we claim to be Christians, there is no room for expediency. Hitler is the anti-Christ. Therefore we must go on with our work and eliminate him." [4]

The assassination plot failed; Bonhoeffer he was hanged by special order of Heinrich Himmler. For Dietrich Bonhoeffer, it was The Cost of Discipleship.

The problem with armed resistance to ethical and moral ideas is that as soon as one raises a weapon to overthrow some perceived evil system, the pattern for future revolution has been reinforced. The scandal that Americans would carry weapons to presidential events, reinforced by a national insanity about gun rights that makes the USA the most heavily armed population on earth, threatens the future with endless cycles of insurrection. Democracy only works if the system of representative government is supported by the vast majority when one’s favorites are out of power.

This is a complicated maze of issues involving war and peace, individual rights, pacifism, nonviolence, just war theory, self-defense, the right of revolution, opposition to flagrant tyranny, and the very nature of life as a drama of metaphysical unfoldment. Questions abound:

If the Christ was in Hitler, was it still “right” to plot his death?

How many millions of people would have been spared untold misery if a lone gunman had taken out the arch-tyrant?

How can we prevent that model of extreme response to an extreme circumstance from becoming the wish-fulfillment fantasy of everyone who opposes the powers that be?

What are the limits of peaceful protest, spiritual action, resistance to injustice?

If God really has everything under control, why bother to do anything?

Shall we meditate and await the Second Coming, or world peace by gradual warming of the hearts of humanity, or the supernova coming in five billion years which will end the world? Even so come, Lord Jesus.

The questions are not friendly. The answers are not painless. There are people and things against us. God is inside all of these.

Sometimes, I wish life were simpler, but it is what it is…

_________________________________________

[1] Gary Simons, The ‘I’ of the Storm, quoted at http://www.itstime.com/feb2003.htm (accessed 10-16-09).
[2] “It is what it is.” Another ubiquitous saying in New Thought circles, apparently this cliché goes back at least to the late 1940’s. http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2008/01/it-is-what-it-is-or-is-it.html (accesed 10-16-09).
[3] Antinominanism - The belief that ethical values are entirely person-centered; nothing counts except one’s feelings in any given circumstance.
[4] Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Paul Johnson A History of Christianity (NY: Atheneum, 1980), p. 494.