Gandhi, Violence, & Making Change

I just read Arne Naess’s Gandhi and Group Conflict (1974). It’s one of those books I would like to read again and again. Naess studied Gandhi’s own writings and public utterances as well as what philosophers, psychologists, and other social scientists, who had studied Gandhi and his approach (Satyagraha) to changing the status quo, have written. Satyagraha can be translated roughly as “truth seeking”. Gandhi believed that we were all seeking truth, but that we could never know the whole truth. This he argued required us to be humble in that pursuit of truth. Given our fallibility then, he offered that it was immoral to use violence against another who sees the truth differently.

Gandhi was a doer, not simply a thinker. But he was incredibly reflective and critical of his own fallibility and weaknesses. While some might revere Gandhi as a saint (Mahatma is a title bestowed on him which means “great soul”), to me he is one of many teachers we can use from which to view our own lives and actions. Having viewed just the other night the compelling film “Why We Fight” I struggle with my own involvement in ending violence that is practiced by our own government in our name. Should I shrug my shoulders and say I can’t do anything? Is writing a blog, a letter to the editor, or waving a peace flag sufficient?

For readers of this, both of you, there is likely some compelling issue that troubles you. The question for us humans then is,“what ought we to do”? Gandhi believed in the ‘means’ being justified in themselves because we can never know for sure that the desired ‘ends’ will follow. Thus his struggle with finding truth and speaking it and acting it with as much integrity, transparency, and self-reflection as possible.

If there is something we wish to change in this community, how ought we to proceed? Speaking our truth is surely a first step, followed by listening to others’ truth and then reflecting and building on that new whole. We have much work to do. Let’s get talking and listening!!