I’m dedicated to the proposition that it is possible to lead a non-violent life. I’m dedicated to the proposition that I can change not “the” world, but “my” world by making a commitment to handle conflict without violence. In particular, I mean gun violence, but in general I mean any form of violence, be it physical, verbal or emotional. I do not believe that violence can bring a true end to violence.
A story I read as an excerpt from “Black Boy,” by Richard Wright, tells of his experience as a child, in the 1940’s, being sent to the store by his mother to buy a loaf of bread. And on the way there, some other boys beat him up and took the money. He went home, his mother gave him more money, he went out and was beaten up and robbed again. So his mother, gave him some money, a big stick, and told him not to come back without the bread. So, he beat off the boys with the stick, got the bread and never had trouble with the boys again. Some people would say violence solved his problem.
But I would say violence only relocated the problem. It is not likely that the boys who beat him up stopped beating up other boys. They just stopped beating HIM up. So, yes, his problem was solved. But the problem, in general, was not solved. It was just relocated.
How could the problem have been solved? We would have to start by asking how the problem got started, what were the stories behind the boys who beat him, what were their lives like?
Some will say it’s just a lot quicker to beat someone (or shoot someone) than try to figure out all their problems and fix them. And that may appear, in the short run, to be true. But if you want to create societal change, you are going to have really consider where the problems begin. It is not easy to figure out how their problems started, nor how to solve them, and people often resist help, for a variety of reasons.
But if you don’t really study the genesis of the situation, in all its gnarly, messy and disorganized complexity, then you are doomed to just keep dealing with the end results which involve more little boys beating up other little boys, who may or may not strike back, and who will become bigger and more violent, and then you have violent adults.
I don’t mean to oversimplify. In fact, it is practically never simple. But I am tired of violence, tired of reading about shootings, fatal and non-fatal, tired of the constant struggle between youth and police, tired of the general resignation to a world that seems increasingly overcome by violence, and less and less receptive to even considering the alternatives.
The idea of non-violence is so threatening to some that most of its strongest proponents, including Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lennon all died violent deaths at the hands of those who could not fathom the idea of world view that suggested that peace was possible.
And although I am frequently challenged on this viewpoint, I still believe it is.
debora gordon 