Thomas Jefferson – Light and Liberty – and notes on Gandhi
Last week, I attended a splendid talk by Eric Peterson, editor of “Light and Liberty – reflections on the pursuit of happiness” on Jefferson and his ways. I recorded the talk, and you can download the audio here. Quality is pretty good, the room was well set up.
Thanks to Svanur for the picture!
As you know, I’m a big fan of Jefferson and his perspective on life. I’ve often said that if I had to choose between Jefferson and Gandhi I’d take Jefferson, and this is true for four reasons.
Firstly, there is the matter of the rifle and genocide. I’m entirely unconvinced that Gandhian passive resistance would have worked in the Ukranian Famine or similar cases – when the intent of the opponent is to exterminate, not to dominate, I do not believe that passive resistance can work.
Secondly, there is the matter of consciousness. Gandhi’s approach elevated ordinary people to a sublime plane where the spiritual truths that he had discovered were now visible to them. He inspired people beyond their human limits. But when Gandhi was gone, who could carry the mandate and keep people at that elevated level of consciousness? Judging by India’s subsequent history, nobody was up to it and without a continuous presence of such beings, how can a system which depends on that kind of elevated spiritual insight persist?
Thirdly, there is the hard question of law. Suppose Gandhi had lived until 80 and effectively governed India, regardless of who was theoretically in power. What then would have become of the law? It would have been his law, because in the minds of the people there was no higher authority, and any law of which he did not approve would have been ignored until resources for its enforcement collapsed. Is this the government of law rather than men?
Finally, there is the question of democracy and self-determination. Human solidarity is a beautiful thing, but what of the outliers, the people who will follow their own drum? An approach which is rooted in the inviolate rights of the individual, and greatly limits the power of the collective to influence their behavior or apply compulsion, matters. Nonviolent resistance relies on the ability of the many to overwhelm the few – of the oppressed to crush the oppressor one refusal-to-comply at a time, but what of the individual who wants things to be different, but cannot muster group support? Protection of the rights of the individual, and group solidarity behind the protection of those rights, is a subtly separate process from groups fighting for freedom in unity.
So, all regards to Jefferson. I think that Gandhi saw truth more clearly, but Jefferson and the boys acted on what he saw in a more sustainable way – I believe that Jefferson can be implemented here and now. I’m not so sure about Gandhi, although there is no superior political strategist when it comes to the freeing of the oppressed.
Had Gandhi operated in pre-Civil War America, rather than South Africa and India, I believe we’d have seen a spectacular interaction of ideals. There would be a novel in that.
Enjoy the talk!
Many thanks for making this recording available! Will have a listen sometime soon.
Fascinating. I read about your dillema violent vs nonviolent. Pro gun and pro non violence.
Quite interesting.
But seriously , I find it hard to compare someone like Gandhi with someone like Jefferson who no matter what his ideas were ( and what I read on wikipedia, I really like some of that) was an slawe owner.
Tolstoy once said: “Rich person would do anything for poor people, except one small thing: they would never get of their back!”
He never ever actual gave freedom to his slaves, whatever the reasons were. He was a person of his times and circumstances. Gandhi trans-ceded his time and his location (India).
Well said. The question of slaves in America’s history undercuts all the rhetoric and gets down to brass tacks in a way which makes nobody happy, and one can argue that the militarized economic exploitation of hypercapitalism is a direct extension of those times – the role of the slaves was exported to foreign factory workers operating in areas where unionization will get you murdered.
On the other hand, what did Gandhi leave after him? A technique which requires Great Leaders to use, in an age when we are very short of Great Leaders, and when assassination of those Great Leaders is an ever-easier option. Jefferson’s plan works surprisingly well bottom up, slaves or no slaves, and it offers one thing that Gandhi’s plan does not, as far as I know: genocide resistance.
In a better world I would be a Gandhian to the core. In this world, I acknowledge that Gandhi is more right than Jefferson, but Jefferson is something *I* can get right, if that makes sense!
Thanks for the comment, have you been over to Global Swadeshi?
http://globalswadeshi.org and http://globalswadeshi.net
Yep, I am there, I am the one who mentioned earthboxes. Would like to discuss more on Gandhi and Jefferson.
Ah! That’s who you are, cool. So… tell me, what’s your take on the Gandhi / Jefferson bit – where do you want to take that?
Cheers!
I want to talk a little bit about nonviolence / pro gun self defense since that was also my dilemma, and still is, sort of. But since its late evening and I am really tired and beside i have this passion to write things very shortly here it is.
I think Gandhi is much more practical since guns are no protection at all from things like fleet of B-52 and stealth bombers and tomahawk missiles. Its just plain useless
And they can make a “nice” little genocide with it. And thats even not necessary. I am sure you read about WWII so GErmany had that blitzkrieg strategy. They just passed around their enemies and took main strtegic points. I doubt any militia could stop a column of panzers. Its simply notvery feasible although small attacks could happen. I know the history of my country was history of fierce and mad armed self defence. Based on army first then after crash of it on armed guerilla. Both WWI and WWII. Terrible wars with terrible amount of destruction and deaths. Genocide against Serbian people in Nazi Croatia. And so on and so on. Results were very bad. 30% of Serbians died in WWI. Many, many , during WWII. Infrastructure destroyed, property destroyes, best (bravest most honorable) people killed. Poverty sickness,hunger, political destruction …
And compare that with Sweden or Danmark which more or less didnt take part n those tragic events (WW).
But lets get back to my point and theory. i see Gandhian methods and philosophy as something that could prevent such things, and make them much more benevolent and less tragic.
The most killing in WWII was actually as I know not the deed of the foreign invador but a result of terrible terible ethnical, political,religious,economical, religious etc etc reasons. And sadly that slaughtering didnt resolve any problem at all so we had to repeat it during the ‘90. But that of course didnt solve anything at all.
I cant say that armed tribe like guerilass are to much similar to some Jefersonian ideals but my point is that Gandhi with his ideas, on decentralism, on swadeshi economy, on justice and everything else would offer us something much more practical and effective.
In Serbia, and I think it was the only country in ocupied Europe, Germans in the begining of the occupation have shoot 100 Serbs for one German killed during the guerilla attack. Compare that to peacefull resistance Danish took up. I dont know i anyone was killed in Danmark by Germans. On the other side germans considered the Danes as smaler brother and serbs and other Slavs like slave race.
Conclusion Gandhi is much more practical because he solves deep problems. Having armed population does not solve problems.
There were few desperate attempts of prisoners to fight their way out of the death camps, I think it was the only case in wwII. From wikipedia: In April 1945, as Partisan units approached the camp, the Ustaše camp supervisors attempted to erase traces of the atrocities by working the death camp at full capacity. On April 22, 600 prisoners revolted; 520 were killed and 80 escaped.[47] Before abandoning the camp shortly after the prisoner revolt, the Ustaše killed the remaining prisoners, blasted and destroyed the buildings, guard-houses, torture rooms, the “Picili Furnace” and the other structures. Upon entering the camp, the partisans found only ruins, soot, smoke, and dead bodies.
Its for sure that those people could defend themselve if they were armed…
Anyway the incredible amount of kiling, the genocide, made all the surviving people desperate guerilla fighters, the partisans who at least defeated that monstruous killing regime. Another fact is that most killings were done in the begining by killing people who didnt understand what is hapening. My grandfathers, bith if them were resistance fighters. One of them killed in action. I heard many wartime stories, so memories are stil alive…
My conclusion is that Ghandian methods are solving dep problems which are causes of wars and killings. having arms is just the last,final defense. Gandhi too said that its better to use violence than be coward.
What a mess of ideas, history, memories and grammar mistakes. Its late here, I am tired and have a flu, but just wanted to add some of my perspective since I was interested in your ideas and your pro gun ideas.
In the end I think its crucial to work with gandhian ideas bt if everythig else fails, its perfectly ok to have a right on self defence. I prefer pragmatism over any ideology. Good night!
Just another short note.
I am very interested in the problem of poverty and unemployment. So for an example when you have an occupying army they dont need to control all the people be they armed o not. its enough if they ontrol the key infrastructure, Industry, roads, railroads, power lines etc.
Its enough to put a country to bow down and kneel just by controlling it and or destroying its infrastructure.
Thats what USA did to Serbia during ‘90 (without direct occupation).
The best method of oposing such attacks are the gandhian – it would be very hard to control a very decentralised economy, hard to control self sufficient people who have their gardens to feed them and their independent/interdepended communications line.
Speaking of that do you know about the work of Brain Martin from Australia? He is an author who writes about nonvilence and its different aspects. I particularly find his thoughts on connection between decentralised/sustainable technology (like we talk about in global swadeshi) and non violence interesting and very good read, He writes in open source spirit and you can read al his works online.
http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/
Cheers
http://armthevictims.org
The historical evidence we have is that disarmament is a necessary precondition for genocide. Try a genocide on an armed population and what you get is a civil war – the people may still die, but they will die and take many of the aggressors with them, and that fact may be a strong deterrent.
The US experience in Iraq really points to the ability of a group fighting with relatively light armament to make an occupation unworkable, and I think that is also a very important aspect to this.
The key, though, is that I’m generally very clear on the separation between personal weapons in the hands of the ordinary citizen, and weapons in the hands of the government, in the form of an army. those are two different classes of activity, and I think it would be perfectly possible (for example) to have a country with no army to speak of, and an armed population, which would be very resistant to invasion and occupation, even if it was still somewhat vulnerable to air strikes.
It’s not perfect, but I don’t know how to manage the use of force in a better way. Individual self-defense has to be the basis of all the rest, even armies, and national policy is no reason for anybody to die. But if an army comes, whether it is the army of one’s own “country” or an invader, why should the individual be denied the right to fight – effectively fight – for their life if they so choose?
“I think it would be perfectly possible (for example) to have a country with no army to speak of, and an armed population, which would be very resistant to invasion and occupation, even if it was still somewhat vulnerable to air strikes.”
Switzerland, anyone? Resilient independence preserved by a thoroughly armed populace (and some happy accidents of geography) since 1291.
By the way, for anyone mulling over the gun question, I can’t recommend this book highly enough:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_Consequences_(novel)
Something of an underground bestseller – and banned e.g. in Canada.
As amply demonstrated in the aforementioned book, all gun control laws accomplish is ensuring that the victims of criminals (or invaders) are guaranteed by law to be defenseless, easy prey.
“An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.” — Robert Heinlein
Of course the right of self defense is one of the most basic, human rights. Something that is a biological prime directive. My idea underlining this is something else. We are talking of Switzerland as an example. But this is an organized and rich society, which has solved it basic problems (food, hoousing etc) long time ago. It is a stable society. On the other side we have the majority of humankind in highly unstable destructive state of perpetual life threatening poverty. How much is for them important to be armed? Aint it better for them to have a internet enabled cellphone or OLPC? To be an armed society and that to be useful you first have to have a society of yeomans, inedepedent people. Instead of that you have poverty crushed people very prone to every kind of control.
Gandhi suggested a totally decentralized economy, production by masses. This would make people independent and free. Not the arms. The arms could come later, but I don’t think about it as a necessity for freedom or safety.
Thank you.
I think that food security comes first, for sure. But in many cases, these people can’t attain food security because their ancestors were pushed off their land to make room for plantations, say…
It’s a complex problem to be sure.
But my feeling is that if we recognize, in principle, that people have a right to self-defense which includes incoming armies including the armies of their own government, then we are not the ones to decide when they get their rifles – they are the ones who decide when and how to exercise that pre-existing human right.
Now it’s not like I’m a “rifles for all!” activist. That’s not where I’m putting my energy. But it’s important to me that we generally recognize that the right to bear arms is a basic human right, and one that will eventually need to be recognized in any free society.