Although I am a Canadian, not an American, the statistics of this article and the recommendations of this article likely apply to my country also. Global warming is an international issue, and it is also a moral issue — our failure to respond is an insult to our intelligence, and a reflection on our immaturity as a species.
Our hubris and our acedia are about to destroy us. We are so unwilling to step outside the cultural norm — that if we do not talk about an issue then it will go away — we are willing to destroy our species in consequence.
We need to break the silence.
This is the fundamental premise of The Climate Mobilization, one that I agree with. Again, it is an American organization, and it needs to be an international organization.
All of these projects are apparently dependent on a range of political scenes, from federal to provincial to municipal. For example, the word amongst people I know in the climate activist scene is that they expect the Liberal Government to approve Kinder-Morgan expansion. Such a move by the Canadian federal government is regarded as inappropriate, deceptive, and a betrayal of the principles that the government is supposed to be representing in its promises to the people during the last election.
Various polls suggest that a majority of individuals are opposed to these expansions, the extent of opposition largely dependent on how directly people would be affected by breakdowns in the transport systems, systems that in the past few years have demonstrated how unsafe they are. Residents of Burnaby (the site of the Kinder-Morgan terminus), for example, are highly opposed.
And, I have my usual difficulty deciding if any one set of information is reliable. It is very easy to get into data overload, and I have to fall back to “what do I trust?” (Two of my recent posts were on this topic.) I concluded that basically “I trust myself” — which is not a good source for externalities, but is very useful when it comes to decision making as to what I support.
So, what do I think of all this.
Very simple. If we are to survive as a species, we must shift away from fossil fuels. This will require major shifts in economies, ranging from local to international. It will certainly require major reorganization of ways of community living as well as massive retraining of those individuals who are employed in industries dependent on fossil fuels.
Thus, to support the expansion of the fossil fuel industry in any way is simple adding another nail to the coffin of our species. Even if the risks were acceptable, the basic proposal is flawed.
We are at war, and we are losing! (Bill McKibben, 2016 Sep 6)
I’ve indicated previously that I have joined The Climate Mobilization (TCM). What follows is the pledge I am making as part of this process.
I’ve joined TCM because I strongly believe that our civilization is on a suicide course regarding Climate Change, and that the only hope for our survival (in any form of effective civilization) is to engage in a massive political mobilization. Actually, it may be our only hope for survival as a species.
The planet will survive. Life will likely survive. We may not!
All of this will not likely occur in my lifetime. But I/we will be leaving a degraded world for our children and grand-children. I would like my grand-children to know that I am doing what I can to create a better world.
Climate Change is a problem of our entire civilization, not a national issue. The Pledge is international, and can be adapted for any nation.
CLIMATE MOBILIZATION INTERNATIONAL PLEDGE
Climate change is causing immense human suffering and damage to the natural world. It threatens the collapse of civilization within this century. Confronting this crisis is the great moral imperative of our time.
I CALL ON CANADA’S GOVERNMENT TO:
Immediately commence a social and economic mobilization to restore a climate that is safe, stable, and supportive of human civilization. This heroic campaign shall be carried out on a vast scale, transforming our economy at wartime speed.
Reduce our country’s net greenhouse gas emissions 100 percent by 2030 at the latest and implement far-reaching measures to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
Enlist a multitude of citizens in efforts to rapidly expand our carbon-neutral energy and agricultural systems, conduct groundbreaking research, and implement large-scale adaptation measures. Full employment will be achieved.
Conduct this mobilization in accordance with the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights and ensure that the essential needs of the civilian economy are met during this time of transition.
Establish the following imperatives as our nation’s top foreign policy priorities: A 100 percent reduction of global net greenhouse gas emissions at emergency speed, and the deployment of comprehensive measures that remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere until a safe climate is restored.
I will enlist fellow citizens from all walks of life in this campaign. If sitting politicians fail to mobilize, we will elect leaders with the courage and foresight to enact these demands.
I WILL:
Vote for candidates— on every electoral level — who have signed the Pledge to Mobilize over those who have not.
Advocate publiclyfor an emergency climate mobilization in the halls of government and in the media.
Mobilize my skills, resources, and networks to spreadthe truth of climate change and the hope of this movement to others. When I spread the Pledge to Mobilize, I will do so with respect, truth, focus and courage.
Thus I pledge to mobilize, in defense of civilization and the natural world.
MY INTENTION (in the next four months)
Initiate a Vancouver-based chapter of Climate Mobilization.
Organize a support group within System Change Not Climate Change – North Vancouver regarding anger and burnout within the spectrum of Climate Change
Present workshops on Anger Management (Blowing Out The Darkness) and Burnout (The Bottom Line) as a supplementary support.
Present an online Anger Management program: Angry? Change Your Life in 90 Days (a free email program).
I’ve chosen to focus on TCM because I believe that TCM has an effective vision, and an effective platform. From my work as therapist (using the concept of the force field of change), I know that change requires three things:
an effective vision of the future,
an honest appraisal of the present, and
a shift in the balances of forces that maintain the present
augmenting the positive forces, and
reducing the negative forces.
As TCM notes, their immediate vision is that of full-scale climate mobilization; they are less clear of the long-term vision, but at least they allude to the need for long-term cultural change. Their appraisal of the present as a suicide mission is correct for me.
I agree that their focus on augmenting political will is accurate as to what must happen in shifting the culture. And they recognize the need for dealing with the negative forces, the Climate Lie. Finally, although heavily Americanized in their language, they attempt to build coordinated cooperation between agencies.
Thus for me, TCM covers all the bases — so this is where I want to put my energy of making a difference. At the personal level, my strength is in reducing the negative forces, especially in dealing with issues of anger and burnout (long-term, I do want to find a way to utilize my strengths — which will almost certainly be necessary in the coming years).
For now though, my need is to build a local organization within TCM, one that can make a difference. I’m new to being an activist, but I have (I hope) relatively few illusions as to how difficult it is to shift the system. As necessary I fall back on the adage of how does one eat an elephant — one bite at a time.
In the last post, I reviewed the negative forces that I believe impact the likelihood of catastrophe as the outcome of global warming. I want now to reflect on the positives concerning my hope for a mature culture.
As stated, I strongly believe that, if we are to survive as a species, we must more towards maturity; we must move towards:
the many features of justice and love that have been advocated over the centuries (the features that represent our greatness as a species), and
the ability to have power over the processes of power (the nemesis that has plagued our civilizations for thousands of years).
In the past few years, I have often stated that, as individuals, human beings are capable of incredible greatness, but as a species we are psychotic.
There are many positives, but unfortunately they are not as easy to describe as the negatives. My struggle in this post is to organize the positives in such a way as to convey hope. Here I define hope as “evidence in the present for what I seek in the future.”
The positive forces include:
large numbers of people and organizations making headway in technology, social justice, and other forms of cultural transformation.
In particular, Gilding in The Great Disruption (2011) notes of human beings: “They were slow, but not stupid.”
the huge diversity in the creative ways in which change is beginning to occur in our civilization, thus increasing the possibility of self-organizing systemic change.
major advances in science and technology.
much better understanding to complex systems, leading to better understanding of resilience and sustainability.
much more powerful theological understandings and challenges, with an emphasis on community and correction of systemic injustice.
many examples of the convergence of science and spirituality. For example, Shinzen Young[1] notes: “the world of rigorous science and the world of deep meditation have begun a courtship dance.. . . a new knowledge powerful enough to rapidly alter the course of human history for the better.”
numerous social challenges by diverse organizations, ranging from 350.org to native communities, seeking greater attention to ecology and the dangers of global warming.
It is essential that these forces affiliate, but it is equally important that they provide diversity, so as to provide the opportunity for creative resolutions to difficult issues.
the recognition that profound change usually comes out of left field. It is not predictable how and when it will happen. As example, I think of the many times in my life that major change occurred in a day or less when events came together in synchronistic ways. This was true of the mystical experiences I had, and it was also true of both my decision to settle in Orangeville Ontario (1992) as a therapist, and my developing a day retreat center (1996) for anger management — profound change within hours.
When I look over the above, it does not look like much in the way of evidence! Much of it is very subjective.
I am also influenced by my own mystic experiences that have been transformative of my life, especially that of a three-year period of Cosmic Consciousness, an experience of profoundly knowing that “all shall be well,” a trust in the goodness of the universe.
Furthermore, I am very aware that to live into the power of the negatives is to create a self-fulfilling prophesy that we are all doomed anyway, so why bother? I am not willing to do this; thus I choose to be active in response.
However, each person will have to struggle with their own despair in this horrendous issue. I have deep compassion for this struggle — in my dissertation, I noted a statement of the 17th century scientist-philosopher Blaise Pascal: “those who study acedia do not come away unscathed.”
It is helpful to me to remember that the Chinese pictogram for crisis is a combination of the symbols for danger and for opportunity. There is also the Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times!
I believe that my primary journey as a human being is to become more loving — and the issues of global warming certainly provide that interesting opportunity. I hope we will survive (and thrive in) these dangerous times, but I also recognize it seems like a coin toss as to what will really happen.
Onward — what are the blocks that stop human beings from maturing.
[1] Unsolicited email, 2016 September 9, Shinzen Young on The Science of Enlightenment. http://www.soundstrue.com/store/the-science-of-enlightenment-4028.html?utm_source=bronto&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=R160909-Young&utm_content=Shinzen+Young+on+The+Science+of+Enlightenment&_bta_tid=03664472911054719897476254701099948306789889130588936207319080890795520&_bta_c=e94jagz6u5gkgkt5ov9doso5l5l82.
I want now to reflect on my hope for a mature culture. For more than twenty postings, I have suggested my ideas for a mature culture, not as a blueprint, but as a point of discussion.
I strongly believe that, if we are to survive as a species, we must more towards maturity; we must more towards:
the many features of justice and love that have been advocated over the centuries (the features that represent our greatness as a species), and
the ability to have power over the processes of power (the nemesis that has plagued our civilizations for thousands of years).
If we do not learn to manage these issues, we not only are not likely to survive, but we probably do not even deserve to survive.
As I reflect on what I know of the human species, and of the characteristics of civilization, it is very easy for me to feel discouraged.
We are at the brink of destruction of our world as a result of the complexity of global warming; we have knowingly been moving in this direction for at least 50 years, and we are only now beginning to mobilize our resources (probably ineffectively as yet) to combat these forces.
And what we are just starting to confront are only the symptoms of the hubris and acedia that underlie the processes whereby we have created global warming. Especially, we have yet to begin the conversation regarding the two major issues of overpopulation and the management of power.
It is not easy to read about, or to write about, these matters. I began to look at them in a serious way about five years ago, and as a result, I was in major despair for a number of years. I am through that struggle now, and as a result, I choose to live into hopefulness. But I have major empathy and compassion with those who are in denial or who give up — it is not easy to live with ongoing concern of these issues.
So, to begin, I see many forces arrayed against this possibility of maturity.
As a species, we are pain avoiders. We tend not to deal with issues until they are fully in our faces, such that we must deal with them.
Given the laws of physics as applied to global warming, this tendency does not bode well for survival. We are reaching, if not exceeding, irreversible tipping points that will change our world in major ways.
And there is the acedia of the general population, many of whom are almost certainly overwhelmed by the complexity of these problems. The difficulty here is to get others to respond; the problems are so complex and so difficult to prove, especially in the face of frequent disinformation. But silence maintains the Climate Lie.
We are the world’s top predator, and we are deeply in denial of this role. David Suzuki, in “The simple-minded nature of human super predators” (2016 Sep 06) notes: “When judged by this dynamic of upholding natural balances, humans are failing terribly as predators” — as compared to other predator-prey systems which are symbiotic, human beings degrade the system rather than stabilize it. We interfere, often with good intentions.
Between global warming and overpopulation, we are likely approaching Malthusian limits that will present themselves as famine, plague, or war, all of which have some basis in present reality.
Famine: Lester Brown in World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse (2011) has written: “I had long rejected the idea that food could be the weak link in our twenty-first century civilization. Today I think not only that it could be the weak link, but that it is the weak link.”
War: The increasing numbers of failed states such as Syria, and the testing of nuclear weapons by North Korea, are potentially only the beginning of struggles over resources such as water and food.
There is also the immense sabotage of democratic systems by processes that, for me, can only be understood as greed and evil.
Recently I read of The Court That Rules The World, a somewhat secretive legal system that allows corporations to impose their will on governments around the world, partly through legal means and partly through threat of the costs involved in litigation.
Consistent with the adage “Powertends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” there is much in the modern legal system that does not reflect justice, but merely legal maneuvering — a sad state of affairs with respect to the possibility of a mature culture.
Given all of this, many give up. I have not. In the next post, I will look at the positives.
Much of this post, as with part 1, is a precis of The Parable Of The Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution by Andrew Schmookler (1984). For me, the book is a brilliant summary of our current cultural stuckness.
If an expanding society willingly stops where its growth would infringe on others, it allows death to catch up and overtake its population [it must become stable . . . to birth and death!]. With no natural order . . . to prevent it, some will surely choose to take what belongs to their neighbors rather than accept the limits that are compulsory for every other form of life.
The Parable of The Tribes
The parable suggested by Schmookler is that of a group of tribes living within reach of one another. They could all choose peace, but what if one is ambitious for expansion and conquest.
The others must respond! Their options are:
defeat and destruction,
defeat and absorption,
fleeing to another location (likely temporary, as well as loss of homeland),
successful defense by adoption of their own patterns of aggression
“No one can choose peace, but anyone can impose upon all the necessity for power. . . . Power is like a contaminant, a disease, which once introduced will gradually and inexorably become universal in the system of competing societies. . . . A selection for power among civilized societies is inevitable.”
“What is viable in a world beset by the struggle for power is what can prevail. What prevails may not be what best meets the needs of mankind. . . . Power therefore rules human destiny.”
There will be a selective advantage to those who hunger for power. Power is a selective process that gains its potency from being cumulative over time.
What Determines Societal Development
But power is not the only factor determining societal development, merely an important one. Thus there can be other social forces such as the desire for humanizing values, for compassion and beauty, but power competes! And competes in major ways [as evident by our cultural history and our current political environment.]
“Since the rise of civilization, there has been a strong note of torment in the human condition,” monstrous perhaps, evil perhaps. But Parable is not an indictment of human nature — all that is required is the creative development of culture to a certain point of freedom, plus the human capacity of movement towards aggressive behavior (but not the necessity). It is an inevitable stage of human development.
Parable also points out that the parable of the tribes is present both between external groups, and within any one group. The internal processes are what create the benefits and the deficits of governance and of the judiciary system. The dynamics of power can subvert the internal systems just as effectively as the external.
We need to be alarmed about our destructiveness as a species and of our current culture , but it is a simple consequence of our creativity, a tragedy representative of the inevitable options for power. Yet the fall of the tragic hero is the opportunity for humility and recovery.
We Must Manage Power
There is “no way to return the dangerous djinni of human power back into the bottle.” And perhaps mankind will evolve to “control the actions of all to the degree needed to protect the well-being of the whole.” The development of the global village offers this possibility.
Thus Schmookler ends the introductory chapter with the quote I provided in the last post:
The laws of man require power, for power can be controlled with power. The challenge is to design systems that use power to disarm power. Only in such an order can mankind be free.
To all this, I would add the following:
Cooperation and authenticity are the necessary vehicles for designing a more mature culture. But they are not sufficient conditions — the transmutation of power is needed.
And to be authentic is dangerous. If you have power already you can probably manage the danger but if you do not you are in major trouble. Historically that meant you were killed — in modern times you’re not likely to be killed; we have simply become more subtle in how we threaten people. The movie Trumbo, the story of the blacklisting of Dalton Trumbo during the McCarthy era, is an excellent example of how this is done.
It is said that darkness cannot hide in the light. But it can hide! It can hide where there is the denial that darkness exists. This is the current dilemma of global warming, hiding in disinformation.
There are many who advocate that we just need be kinder to each other.
I am not convinced; we are capable of aggression and viciousness. Attempting to suppress this feature of humanness does not work.
What we need is maturity. We need to be able to do something else, something that includes our tendency to aggression! A fundamental need when stuck is to do something else that transcends and includes. This is the fundamental basis I offer in my anger management program.
I’m going to continue with how I ended the last post — the need to manage power. I believe it is essential to do so. I also believe that the book The Parable Of The Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution (Andrew Schmookler, 1984) provides brilliant insight into the nature of power.
I am slowly re-reading this book (which I will refer to as Parable), so it will be long before I complete it (likely I will do a number of posts on it). For now, I do not want to lose my immediate insights (and a friend wants this information for a book she is writing). Much of these two posts will be a précis of the first Chapter of Parable.
First to understand power. The definition I use commonly is “the ability to influence.” I distinguish two kinds of power:
External power, or the ability to dominate, the ability of one party to impose their will on the second party without the permission of the second party.
Domination is characterized by fear, both on the part of the second party (fear of immediate loss) and also on the part of the first party (fear of reprisal).
Internal power, or personal power, the ability to influence because the behavior of the first party impresses the second party to the extent that the second party wants to interact with first party.
Personal power is characterized by a sense of aliveness, personal integrity, authentic relationships, and the ability to contribute.
Many people want this kind of power, both those who have it and those who do not. It is gained by personal growth.
So, some thoughts before I give you a précis of the first chapter of Parable.
Does a deer have choice? Yes, in a sense. Does a human being have choice? Definitely, and seemingly more so.
Can a deer have power. Possibly. Can a lion have power? Definitely a lion can be a dominator in seeking food sources. Can a human being have power? Definitely.
What are the differences? That is a part of what Parable seeks to address.
Parable suggests an alternative view to the commonsense view that human beings have created civilization by choosing beneficial outcomes for humanity. As evidence, the past ten thousand years of human development have been inconsistent and disappointing in terms of what humanity could have achieved, given the striving for good that cultural exemplars manifest. We are capable of great cooperation, but our consistent behaviors are competitive. Why?
First of all, the evolution of human beings has taken millions of years, not just ten thousand. For any species of life to develop, there has been the need for environmental stability. Life has basically been the adaptation to niches, only a few of which have then favored flexibility of response. The more complex niches have allowed more complexity to evolve. Selection eventually favored learning as a more efficient route of development, on which our human complexity has been built over several million years.
Next, because of their ability to learn, human beings maximized the development of culture, the ability to transmit what we have learned from generation to generation. As part of this, tools and language arose, as well as bodily modifications such as heels, hands and mouths to make use of culture.
But culture created the unpredictable animal, the freedom to choose. A “creature with the freedom to choose can be dangerous — to self, to others of his kind, to all life.” Thus arose the myths — only humans can confront the choice between good and evil.
The development of culture was radical, but culture “developed over hundreds of thousands of years without disruption of continuity” in individuals, society, and the natural order. Human societies were limited by the food that nature provided spontaneously! [These were the hunter-gatherers described by Herman in Future Primal, a people representative of the first democracy.]
The development of agriculture and domestication meant more food, more reliably, and thus open-ended changes in the structure of human society. Thus could society shift from hunter-gatherer (small, mobile groups, with social equality) to civilization (large groups, specialized).
In nature, all of life pursues survival, but within biologically evolved limits — “the struggle is part of order. . . . With the rise of civilization, the limits fall away.” Previously growth was limited by scarcity and consequent death. Civilization brought the capacity of seemingly unlimited growth.
In so doing, “full-scale civilization arose and showed a frightening face.” Social equality gave rise to “rigid stratification with the many compelled to serve the few! Civilization magnified the freedom, but was no longer subject to the limitations posed by nature. Civilization became governed a wholly new evolutionary principle, power!
Bill McKibben of 350.org has now named the issue. In a New Republic article, A World At War, he leads with “We’re under attack from climate change — and our only hope is to mobilize like we did in WWII.” The article is worth reading in its entirety, and there is a summary on Common Dreams, also worth reading.
Thus the leadership is mobilizing. McKibben proposes that, following the American election, the new president will mobilize American society. Hopefully!
But I see a number of deficits.
First, McKibben’s 350.org is only one organization of many. We need a concerted effort to have all the major players come together in a cooperative movement, all demanding a war-like mobilization. Perhaps then the political machinery will listen.
Second, as I have been saying, “Leaders lead — followers create the change.” It remains to be seen if the followers will also engage. Worldwide!
Third, and perhaps most important, the leadership has not yet had the courage to name what must follow if we “win the war.” After WWII, there came the deluge of consumerism. We cannot have such as that to occur again.
We must be willing to challenge the entire basis of our civilization. Our entire culture balances between the ravages of domination and the desire for cultural maturity. It is time to move beyond this pattern.
I am currently re-reading The Parable Of The Tribes: The Problem of Power In Social Evolution. At the end of the first chapter, the author names what I consider to be the crucial issue:
The laws of man require power, for power can only be controlled with power. The challenge, therefore, is to design systems that use power to disarm power. Only in such an order can mankind be free.
As indicated previously, I am now promoting The Climate Mobilization — largely because my take on the climate issues is that we are no longer near the edge of disaster — we are starting to fall over the edge!
Here are a few recent articles that are very pertinent for me:
Over the past seven or eight years, I have found that every major scientific report indicated that the previous report underestimated the dangers. These reports continue that theme.
As well, National Geographic is reported as about to launch a landmark climate series just before the American election: A Murdoch-Owned TV Channel Will Air A Landmark Climate Series Before The Election — Years of Living Dangerously (the trailer on the webpage looks very informative). Given that the Murdock empire has had a reputation of climate disinformation, surprisingly this series promises to be very blunt as to the dangers of global warming, again emphasizing how serious the issues are.
Such programs provide leadership, but as I have been saying recently, change is created by followers — the leaders provide the direction, but the work is done by followers. We need to mobilize the followers, and it seems to me that The Climate Mobilization is doing that.
I’ve been reading some of the articles accessible through The Climate Mobilization website, especially those concerning what we are now learning about the risks of global warming, even at our current level. It is so much worse than I thought! And I regard myself as well-informed in this area. For me, the issues are so related to the acedia of our civilization.
Gradually we are shifting. More and more leaders are speaking out for the need for profound change. However, all that leaders can do is lead! It is followers that create the bulk of the change. We need the majority of our culture to speak out.
And there is some evidence that the cultural majority are aware of this need. Recent research suggests that 54% of people in four Western countries acknowledge high risk of our civilization ending, and 24% recognize the risk of human extinction, all in the next 100 years.
Acedia and Evil
In this post I want to finish with the topic of acedia, in particular the nature of evil.
In The Hope: A Guide To Sacred Activism, Andrew Harvey tells the story of a major agribusiness CEO who knew exactly what destruction he was causing to the lives of thousands of people, but proceeded anyway simply for the sense of power that it gave him. When I reflect on modern tragedies such as
the duplicity of British Petroleum in the 2010 Gulf environmental disaster,
ExxonMobil being aware of the impact of fossil fuel on global warming in the 1970s, and deliberately hiding this information (presumably for profit to the company),
the Koch brothers’ massive manipulation of the American political system,
and many other political-economic-environmental disasters of recent years,
I cannot but consider these actions as evil — the active antagonism of what life offers, the hiding for political-economic power. Such actions must be identified, and stopped, but there is the danger of focusing on these issues, rather than looking at the system (the Cultural Lie, including myself as part to this system) which allows such actions to develop.
The Banality of Acedia and Evil
I also know from Hannah Arendt’s work on the banality of evil and Milgram’s work on obedience to authority, that the possibility of evil is a fundamental human characteristic. I consider evil as the end-point of the spectrum of acedia, as shown in the accompanying diagram. The manifestations of acedia (self-righteousness, laziness, fearfulness) are not evil per se, but they set the stage for evil, especially the acceptance of evil acts by others, wherein acedia displays as an attitude of “it doesn’t matter,” “who cares?,” or “it can’t be helped.”
Yet the fundamental difficulty of evil is the attempt to eliminate evil — it sets a false dichotomy of us against them, and if only we eliminate them, things will be fine. When we as individuals fail to recognize how our silence and/or tokenism in the Climate Lie perpetuates the system, we support the evil of actions such as above.
As a culture, we have enjoyed the benefits of technology, and have been unwilling to recognize or pay the costs. We live gross inequality, with massive world poverty (amidst conclaves of richness), extensive hunger (especially starvation of children), mistreatment of minorities (especially women in underdeveloped countries), waste and pollution (our garbage accumulates), amongst other inequities. We live the acedia cycle, especially in our lack of charity in resolving these issues. We have extensive “charitable organizations,” yet as a culture we lack the charity to resolve these difficulties.
So what to do? Most of the power is held by those who are creating the inequality, mainly the leaders of the multi-national corporations. (Likely only a small minority of these corporations — I presume most are honorable, but we must find a way through so as to disempower those that create the most disruption of equitable society. And in any event, I am not interested in created the us versus them dilemma.)
The Need for Civil Disobedience
Gier (2006), in Three Principles of Civil Disobedience: Thoreau, Gandhi, and King, notes that effective civil disobedience requires that:
one maintain respect for the rule of law even while disobeying the specific law perceived as unjust;
one should plead guilty to any violation of the law; and
one should attempt to convert the opponent by demonstrating the justice of one’s
I believe that civil disobedience is the only route that we can take. To engage in evil to combat evil will not lead to a mature culture. We have made attempts, such as the Occupy movement, but they need to continue.
Are we worthy of being a mature culture? I hope so.
