19 November 04

Search For A Non-Violent Future

We just heard Michael Nagler, non-violence scholar and founder of the Peace and Conflict Studies program at UC Berkeley, speak and participate in a panel discussion at the Davis Community Church. The church hall was packed, though I was a bit disappointed there were relatively few young people there. He was a little hoarse; he says he has an allergy which came on starting November 2nd. A few quotes:

“If you lose, don’t lose the lesson” — the Dalai Lama

Nagler says that the lesson of the election is that we’re not going to solve the fix we’re in through the efforts of standard liberal and left-wing politics. Rather, we have to go much deeper than that, to the cultural and spiritual levels.

“Do not agitate the minds of ignorant people” — the Bhagavad-Gita

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world” — Gandhi

Nagler is naturally enough a Gandhian, as am I. But how does one, in the face of this tsunami of negativity we’re in a) keep hope up and b) avoid mirroring back our opponent’s hatreds?

Part 2 of Nagler’s visit is tomorrow morning, a closer look at spiritual practice and peace.

Posted by at 09:15 PM in Politics | Link |
  1. I am trying to teach myself to stop trying to convince those who don’t want to be convinced. It is way healthier, it takes less work, and in the end, I think it has much more impact to just help bring deeper understanding to each other. It is important to remember that there are enough people out there that feel, want to feel, or are on the verge of feeling like we do, but need encouragement. The others will come around in their own time.

    While I am not advocating living in an echochamber, I am finding it is much more hopefull and hateless than than wasting time arguing with “the enemy”.

    That’s also what I interperet the quote to mean:
    “Do not agitate the minds of ignorant people”.


    — kevin    22. November 2004, 13:48    Link

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