Henry David Thoreau (1849).

"On the Duty of Civil Disobedience,"

in Nonviolence in Theory and Practice, 2nd ed. Ed. Robert L. Holmes and
Barry Gans. Waveland Press, 2005, pp.48-63 (excerpts pp.49-57).

"This copy is made solely for the use by a student, staff member or faculty
member at Wilfrid Laurier University for research, private study, review,
criticism, news reporting, education, parody or satire. Any other use may be an
infringement of copyright if done without securing the permission of the
copyright owner."

Can there not be a government in which the majorities do not virtually

decide right and wrong, but conscience?—in which majorities decide only
those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen
ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the
legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be
men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the
law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to
assume, is to do at any time what I think right....

Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it,
even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice. A common and
natural result of an undue respect for the law is, that you may see a
file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys
and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars,
against their wills, aye, against their common sense and consciences,
which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the
heart. They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are
concerned; they are all peaceably inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all? or
small movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in
power? ...

How does it become a man to behave toward the American government today? I
answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. I cannot for an
instant recognize that political organization as my government which is
the slave’s government also.

All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse
allegiance to and to resist the government, when its tyranny or its
inefficiency are great and unendurable. But almost all say that such is
not the case now. But such was the case, they think, in the Revolution of ’75.
If one were to tell me that this was a bad government because it taxed certain
foreign commodities brought to its ports, it is most probable that I should not
make an ado about it, for I can do without them: all machines have their friction;
and possibly this does enough good to counter-balance the evil. At any rate, it is
a great evil to make a stir about it.

But when the friction comes to have its machine, and oppression and robbery
are organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer. In other
words, when a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken
to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country [Mexico] is
unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to
military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and
revolutionize. ...

Paley, a common authority with many on moral questions, in his chapter on the
“Duty of Submission to Civil Government,” resolves all civil obligation into
expediency; and he proceeds to say, “that so long as the interest of the whole
society requires it, that is, so long as the established government cannot be
resisted or changed without public inconveniency, it is the will of God that the
established government be obeyed, and no longer.”—“This principle being
admitted, the justice of every particular case of resistance is reduced to
a computation of the quantity of the danger and grievance on the one
side, and of the probability and expense of redressing it on the other.”
Of this, he says, every man shall judge for himself.

But Paley appears never to have contemplated those cases to which the rule of
expediency does not apply, in which a people, as well as an individual, must do
justice, cost what it may. If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning
man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself. This, according to Paley,
would be inconvenient. But he that would save his life, in such a case, shall lose
it. This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make war on Mexico,
though it cost them their existence as a people. ...

Practically speaking, the opponents to a reform in Massachusetts are not a

hundred thousand politicians at the South, but a hundred thousand merchants
and farmers here, who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than
they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the slave and to
Mexico, cost what it may. I quarrel not with far-off foes, but with those
who, near at home, co-operate with, and do the bidding of those far
away, and without whom the latter would be harmless. ...

It is not so important that many should be as good as you, as that

there be some absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the
whole lump. There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to
the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming
themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in
their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing ...

It is not a man’s duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the

eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly
have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands
of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If
I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see,
at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man’s
shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his
contemplations too. See what gross inconsistency is tolerated. I have heard
some of my townsmen say, “I should like to have them order me out to help put
down an insurrection of the slaves, or to march to Mexico,—see if I would go;”
and yet these very men have each, directly by their allegiance, and so
indirectly, at least, by their money, furnished a substitute. ...

Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we

endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or
shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government
as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to
alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be
worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the
remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to
anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? ...
Why does it always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther,
and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels? ...

I do not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves abolitionists should at
once effectually withdraw their support, both in person and property, from the
government of Massachusetts, and not wait till they constitute a majority of one,
before they suffer the right to prevail through them. I think that it is enough if
they have God on their side, without waiting for that other one. Moreover, any
man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already. ...

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a
just man is also a prison. The proper place today, the only place which
Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less desponding spirits, is in her
prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her own act, as they have
already put themselves out by their principles. It is there that the fugitive slave,
and the Mexican prisoner on parole, and the Indian come to plead the wrongs of
his race, should find them ...

If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and
slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men
were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody
measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence
and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable
revolution, if any such is possible.

If the tax-gatherer, or any other public officer, asks me, as one has done, “But
what shall I do?” my answer is, “If you really wish to do any thing, resign your
office.” When the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned
his office, then the revolution is accomplished. But even suppose blood should
flow. Is there not a sort of blood shed when the conscience is wounded? Through
this wound a man’s real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an
everlasting death. I see this blood flowing now. ...
Some years ago, the State met me in behalf of the church, and
commanded me to pay a certain sum toward the support of a
clergyman whose preaching my father attended, but never I myself.
“Pay it,” it said, “or be locked up in the jail.” I declined to pay. But,
unfortunately, another man saw fit to pay it. I did not see why the schoolmaster
should be taxed to support the priest, and not the priest the schoolmaster; for I
was not the State’s schoolmaster, but I supported myself by voluntary
subscription. I did not see why the lyceum should not present its tax-bill, and
have the State to back its demand, as well as the church. However, at the
request of the selectmen, I condescended to make some such statement as this
in writing:—“Know all men by these presents, that I, Henry Thoreau, do not wish
to be regarded as a member of any incorporated society which I have not
joined.” This I gave to the town-clerk; and he has it. The State, having thus
learned that I did not wish to be regarded as a member of that church, has
never made a like demand on me since; though it said that it must adhere to its
original presumption that time.

Martin Luther King, Jr. "Letter From Birmingham Jail," in Why We Can't Wait, ed. Martin Luther
King, Jr. New York: Harper and Row, 1963, pp.77-100. Reprinted in Nonviolence in Theory and
Practice, 2nd ed. Ed. Robert L. Holmes and Barry Gans. Waveland Press, 2005, pp.101-113
(excerpts pp.102-108).

"This copy is made solely for the use by a student, staff member or faculty member at Wilfrid
Laurier University for research, private study, review, criticism, news reporting, education, parody or
satire. Any other use may be an infringement of copyright if done without securing the permission of
the copyright owner."

From the Birmingham jail, where he was imprisoned as a participant in nonviolent demonstrations
against segregation, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote in longhand the letter which follows. It was
his response to a public statement of concern and caution issued by eight white religious leaders of
the South.

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine
whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action. We have gone through
all these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this
community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its
ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the
courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than
in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these
conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused
to engage in good faith negotiation. ...

We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies
as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful
of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self purification. We began a series
of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves: "Are you able to accept blows
without retaliating?" "Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?" ...

You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better
path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct
action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a
community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so
to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the
work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of
the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive,
nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth.

Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise
from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective
appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that
will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of
understanding and brotherhood.

The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably
open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long
has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather
than dialogue. ...

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate
concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing
segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to
break laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying
others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be
the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey
just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St.
Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or
unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust
law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas
Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.

Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is
unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the
personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of
inferiority. ... Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is
morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.

Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a
numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make
binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a
majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made
legal. ...

Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on
a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which
requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain
segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and
protest. ...

In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because
they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like condemning a robbed man
because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning
Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the
act by the misguided populace in which they made him drink hemlock? Isn't this like condemning
Jesus because his unique God consciousness and never ceasing devotion to God's will precipitated
the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently
affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional
rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the
robber. ...

You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow
clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I began thinking about the fact
that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of
complacency, made up in part of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, are so drained
of self respect and a sense of "somebodiness" that they have adjusted to segregation; and in part of a
few middle-class Negroes who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because
in some ways they profit by segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of the masses.

The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating
violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up across the
nation, the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammad's Muslim movement. Nourished by the
Negro's frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination, this movement is made up
of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who
have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible "devil."

I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need emulate neither the "do
nothingism" of the complacent nor the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. For there is
the more excellent way of love and nonviolent protest. I am grateful to God that, through the
influence of the Negro church, the way of nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle.

If this philosophy had not emerged, by now many streets of the South would, I am convinced, be
flowing with blood. And I am further convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as "rabble rousers"
and "outside agitators" those of us who employ nonviolent direct action, and if they refuse to
support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes will, out of frustration and despair, seek solace
and security in black nationalist ideologies--a development that would inevitably lead to
a frightening racial nightmare.

There is a tradition of non-violent (or mostly non-violent) political activism that

runs from Thoreau to the English Suffragettes, to Gandhi's struggle for Indian
independence, to the civil rights movement of Martin Luther King. It has gone by
several names. Thoreau coined the term Civil Disobedience. As practiced by
the Suffragettes it was known as Passive Resistance. Gandhi called his
approach Satyagraha (soul-force). Today it is often referred to as Non-Violent
Resistance.
Some Distinctions
It is best to regard all of these as versions of the same technique. The important
distinctions are as follows:
1. Lawful protests and marches, although non-violent and a kind
of resistance, should simply be regarded as part of ordinary
political activity, like expressing one's opinions or voting.
2. What makes Non-Violent Civil Disobedience distinctive is two
things. First, its disobedience - its willingness to break the law,
to disobey government commands, to do so openly and accept
the consequences. The point is not to evade the law for personal
gain, but to protest for the sake of conscience. Second, its focus
on nonviolence, which distinguishes it from terrorism and other
forms of political violence.
3. It is useful to distinguish Passive Resistance as normally
understood (as a protest against one's own government)
from Civilian-Based Defence, where this technique is elevated
into a replacement for military defence and civilians are trained
to employ it against foreign invaders. We will discuss this in
section 11.11.
4. There is some dispute about whether Civil Disobedience is
necessarily Non-Violent. Some hold that it is, others
distinguish between Non-Violent and Violent forms and point
out that the Suffragettes not only chained themselves to railings,
but also destroyed property and burned houses. We will discuss
violent forms of civil disobedience in section 11.12. They are in a
grey area between Nonviolence and Terrorism.
Two Questions
Justifying the Thoreau-Gandhi-King approach involves answering two questions.
1. First, what gives you the right to break the law?
2. Second, if there is injustice why not use force to end it?
Thoreau vs. Paley
What gives you the right to break the law? Here Thoreau takes on the view
of William Paley, a rule utilitarian, who held that the justice of resisting the state
comes down to "a computation of the quantity of the danger and
grievance on the one side, and of the probability and expense of
redressing it on the other.” This is basically the Principle of
Proportionality of Just War theory. It demands that rebellion be justified in
terms of likely benefits vs. costs, or "expediency" as Thoreau puts it.
Paley's view is quite reasonable, if you assume that resisting the state means
resorting to violence. But what if resistance to the state's laws is peaceful?
Thoreau makes his case in two ways - by appealing to an absolute right of
conscience, and arguing that specific policies of the US government
(supporting slavery and the Mexican War) are unjust and that we have a
duty not to be complicit in supporting them.
Right of Conscience
Thoreau begins by upholding the right of conscience without qualification, a
view that was later echoed by Gandhi:

"It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the
right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume, is to do at any
time what I think right." (Thoreau)
"Civil disobedience is the inherent right of every citizen. He dare not give
it up without ceasing to be a man." (Gandhi)
Limit: Nonviolence
This may sound dangerously anarchic, though it is perhaps morally tolerable if
limited by the principle of nonviolence. This limit is very explicit in Gandhi,
but more implicit in Thoreau's essay. Thoreau doesn't condemn violence, but
the examples of disobedience that he gives are all peaceful. He suggests that if
all just men went to jail for protesting the Mexican War or slavery, the
government would be forced to end such policies. This would be "the definition
of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible."
Limit: Done Openly
Civil Disobedience is often though to put a second restriction on the breaking of
laws - namely that is must be done openly, as the point is protest not
evasion. The protest involves forcing the state to use its machinery of police,
courts, and prisons against those who peacefully oppose an injustice. This
creates publicity for one's cause, makes the state look bad, and so on.
However if "an unjust law is no law at all" (to quote King quoting Augustine),
why not simply ignore or evade laws you consider unjust? This would be
problematic in the case of Thoreau's favourite form of protest - non-payment of
taxes - since many are tempted to evade taxes for motives of personal gain, and
non-payment of taxes is a kind of free-riding since we all benefit from
government services. Thoreau is seeking to protest not taxation itself, but how
his taxes are used to support injustice (i.e. the Mexican War).
In other cases, such as laws that create Victimless Crimes (i.e. prohibition of
alcohol and drugs, banning of prostitution and pornography, and restrictions on
sexual acts between consenting adults), the free-riding objection doesn't apply.
Many feel entitled to evade laws they believe unjustly infringe on personal
liberty. By evading such laws you may win in two ways.

First, if the state doesn't enforce the law, you have successfully nullified the law
in practice and turned it into a dead letter. Second, if the state tries aggressive
enforcement, you may have to go to jail like Gandhi and King. Though you likely
won't be seen as a martyr, the disutility of punishing thousands of non-violent
people for victimless crimes will eventually lead to a movement for repeal of
such laws. This happened with Prohibition in the 1920's and is currently
happening with marijuana laws.

Right to Break Unjust Laws

The focus on King's argument is not on a general right of conscience, but on the
difference between just and unjust laws and the right to break the latter. How do
we identify a law as unjust? King offers several criteria:
1. Aquinas and Natural Law: "An unjust law is a human law that
is not rooted in eternal and natural law."
2. Degrading Human Personality: "Any law that degrades
human personality is unjust."
3. Discrimination against a Minority: "An unjust law is a code
that a majority inflicts on a minority that is not binding on itself."
4. Unjust in their Application: An ordinance requiring a permit
for a parade becomes unjust when used to preserve segregation
and deny the right of peaceful assembly and protest.
Is this helpful? 1 and 2 are either too theological or too vague to offer any
refinement of Thoreau's position, which simply grants everyone a right of
conscience to civilly disobey those laws they consider unjust. Anyone whose
conscience rebelled against a law would also deny that it was "rooted in eternal
and natural law" and see it as "degrading human personality." Any unnecessary
restriction on liberty, or any unjust war, could be seen as degrading human
personality.

More specific to King's cause are 3 and 4. The fact that everyone now would see
the laws that King was protesting against as unjust, may blind us to the problem
that the underlying principle in 3 remains controversial. It would seem to forbid
any conscription law that treated people differently based on gender or age (i.e.
every conscription law ever implemented). One also wonders about the US
setting the drinking age at 21, or affirmative action programs that benefit
everyone except straight while males. A principle that seems obvious in theory
can lead to many debates in practice.
Finally, a law may be unjust even though it treats everyone the same. It may
violate the human rights of everyone without discrimination.

Summing Up
In summary, there are two approaches to justifying Civil Disobedience - one
which focuses on the absolute right of conscience and another which
emphasizes the injustice of the laws violated. The latter approach may seem
more law-abiding, but since it is hard to define a priori which laws it is
excusable to violate, there is a risk of setting up a double standard. A standard
where Civil Disobedience is just and heroic for me but wicked for thee, since
"our side" opposes unjust laws but "your side" violates just laws (i.e. laws we
support).
Focusing on the right of conscience may seem more anarchic, but it encourages
a more universalizable standard. Whatever it is morally tolerable to do in the
way of non-violent civil disobedience for a progressive cause, it is also morally
tolerable for conservatives to do it, and vice versa. King should have been given
a permit for a parade, not because of the specific evil of racial segregation, but
because people have a general right to peacefully assemble and protest which
should not be denied just because their opponents threaten violence.
Non-Violent Resistance vs. Political Violence
Now, for the second question: If there is injustice why not use force to end
it? On behalf of Thoreau, one might answer that nonviolence allows us to resist
in situations where violence would do more harm then good, and thus fail to
meet Paley's test of proportionality. Nonviolent resistance allows greater scope
for the right of conscience without increasing the amount of war in the world.
A Christian minister like Dr. King, influenced by both Thoreau and Gandhi, would
no doubt argue that Nonviolence is both morally preferable and more effective
than violent alternatives like terrorism and guerrilla war. If African Americans
resort to political violence, he sees that as leading "to a frightening racist
nightmare."

Superior Results
Gandhi and King achieved results that are superior to many violent campaigns.
Without King's approach, it's not hard to imagine the struggle against racial
segregation going the way of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Without Gandhi's
approach, it is not hard to imagine Indian independence being achieved with
bitterness and bloodshed, in the manner of Algeria's terrorist war against the
French. And as both Irish and Algerian history suggest, once a people gets into
the habit of solving problems with political violence, it tends to re-occur.
Was Gandhi Lucky to Face the British?
The success of Gandhi has inspired many. On the other hand, some have
suggested that he was lucky to face the British who believed in free
press and the right of assembly. That's not to say Gandhi's road was easy.
His non-violent campaign went on for over 30 years, and he spent over five and
half years in British jails between 1915 and 1944 (Duane Cady, From Warism
to Pacifism, p.98). There was the occasional atrocity such as the Amritsar
Massacre in 1919, although that was hardly typical of British rule, and Colonial
Dyer who ordered it was censured and removed. Still, Orwell and Arendt both
argued that Gandhi's techniques could not have worked against a
totalitarian opponent such as Stalin's Russia.
"There is reason to think that Gandhi, who after all was born in 1869, did not
understand the nature of totalitarianism and saw everything in terms of his
own struggle against the British government. The important point here is not so
much that the British treated him forbearingly as that he was always able to
command publicity. ... It is difficult to see how Gandhi’s methods could be
applied in a country where opponents of the regime disappear in the middle of
the night and are never heard of again. Without a free press and the right
of assembly, it is impossible not merely to appeal to outside opinion,
but to bring a mass movement into being ... Is there a Gandhi in Russia at
this moment? And if there is, what is he accomplishing? The Russian masses
could only practise civil disobedience if the same idea happened to occur to all
of them simultaneously, and even then, to judge by the history of the Ukraine
famine, it would make no difference." (George Orwell, "Reflections on
Gandhi," Partisan Review, 1949.)
"If Gandhi's enormously powerful and successful strategy of nonviolent
resistance had been met with a different enemy - Stalin's Russia, Hitler's
Germany, even pre-war Japan, instead of England - the outcome would not have
been decolonization but massacre and submission." (Hannah Arendt, On
Violence, p.53)
I agree with Orwell and Arendt, two thinkers who really understood
totalitarianism. However, this is only a problem for those who insist that non-
violent resistance is an invincible tactic that is appropriate for every
occasion. Once Stalin and Hitler have their totalitarian power locked in, it's hard
to imagine that German or Russian citizens could have overcome them with soul
force. Some regimes can only be defeated by force of arms or the passage of
time.
Political Violence Fails Too
On the other hand, this doesn't prove that terrorist or guerrilla tactics are
superior to nonviolent resistance. They often fail too in the face of determined
power. It took Russian, American, British, and Canadian armed forces to defeat
Hitler, not some people's resistance. When Czech guerrillas blew up the car of
Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich in 1942, the Germans responded with a massive
reprisal. They killed all 173 men in the village of Lidice, and deported the
women and children to concentration camps.

It is certainly arguable that the Danes and Norwegians achieved more at lower
human cost by passively resisting the Nazis rather than throwing bombs.
Denmark became the only occupied European country to save almost all its Jews
from the death camps, and Norway's teachers passively resisted efforts to
impose fascist propaganda in the schools. Even in dealing with actual
Nazis, nonviolent resistance can sometimes soften hearts while
guerrilla-terrorist violence guarantees even more ruthless repression.
Summing Up
On one hand, Gandhi would have failed against Stalin, and nonviolent resistance
is not an invincible tactic suited to every occasion. However, against a ruthless
and powerful opponent, violent alternatives like guerrilla war and terrorism are
likely to be crushed as well. Though perhaps if a ruthless dictator is also weak
and unpopular (like Bautista in 1950's Cuba), there is a chance that guerrilla war
may be more effective than nonviolence.

On the other hand, in a liberal democracy, nonviolent protest has a better

chance of winning sympathy than violence. For example, terrorism is likely to
overshadow one's message and harden hearts against one's cause. Just
compare King's success using nonviolence against the segregationist American
South, to the many times that the use of violence against Israel only made
things worse for the Palestinians.

If nonviolent resistance can be effective against a government, what about a

foreign invader? This will be our topic in the next section.

11.11. Civilian-Based Defence

Civilian-based Defence could be described sarcastically as follows:

Step 1: Abolish your armed forces.

Step 2: Allow the enemy to invade and occupy your country.
Step 3: Everyone do the Gandhi thing.
More positively, Civilian-based Defence is the somewhat daring idea that the tactics of non-violent
resistance, developed by the Suffragettes, Gandhi, and King, could to be used to replace military
defence and thwart a foreign invader.

It's not a bad idea if you are Denmark dealing with Hitler, or Lithuania and Estonia dealing with
Russia. If your armed forces have no Reasonable Chance of Success in a conventional war, and
guerrilla war will only anger the enemy and justify harsher repression, maybe preparing for Civilian-
based Defence is your best option.

Jessie Wallace Hughan - Pacifism and

Invasion (1942)
Hughan, an American pacifist and socialist, wrote an early proposal along such lines. She wanted to
refute the idea that "if our nation should renounce war and the preparation for war" this would mean
"lying down" before an invader (Hughan, p.219). She suggests we could resist via "non-violent
cooperation, in other words, by a general strike raised to the nth power" (Hughan, p.221).

To start with, a Constitutional Amendment would be enacted taking from the government the power
to prepare for, to declare, or to carry on war. The US would then disarm, down to "the destruction of
firearms" and "the machinery for producing them" (Hughes, 225). Armed force would be replaced
with the following defence tactics.

Four Principles of Unarmed Defence

1. No services or supplies to be furnished to invaders.
2. No orders to be obeyed except those of the constitutional civil authorities.
3. No insult or injury to be offered the invaders.
4. All public officials to be pledged to die rather than surrender. (Hughan, p.225)
Hughan imagines an army of occupation facing such resistance. They have no battles or chances for
heroism, but also no surrenders, no obedient population, no technicians to man the utilities. "The
soldiers have nothing to do but to serve themselves by routine labour, varied by assaults on unarmed
citizens and ignominious robbing of shops and hen-roosts" (Hughan, p.227).

What if the enemy is ruthless? They might "torture striking workers, execute disobedient citizens,
and deliberately starve the resisting community" (Hughan, p.227). In such a case there will be
a battle between enemy violence and the will of the civilian population. The occupied people may
suffer greatly, but not necessarily more than they would in a conventional war.
The invader, if he is ruthless, will look horrible in the eyes of world opinion and will be unable to sell
the war as heroic to its own people. The invasion will not pay in economic terms, with military
spending costing more than will be gained from an uncooperative occupied people.

Hughes thinks that the chances of thwarting the invader are good, granted two points:
1. First, that the invaded population is united in unarmed resistance.
 2. Second, that the enemy nation, although ruthless and unscrupulous ... is not a
community of pathological fools. (Hughan, p.231)
Criticism of Point 2
Hughan's theorizing developed in the wake of World War I. She imagines an enemy with a moderate
amount of decency and rationality, like the Kaiser's Germany, the French post-WWI, or British
colonial rule. Not Stalin, who was willing to kill, starve, and deport millions to suppress any
resistance. Not Hitler who intended to ethnically cleanse regions of their Slavic population so the
Germans could have more Lebensraum (living space). Nor would I bet on non-violent resistance
saving Kuwait from Saddam Hussein. So it is quite possible that some "pathological" ideology will
motivate an aggressor, more than old-fashioned economic gain and national glory.
Hughan's approach would pose a moral problem for an invader that was strictly committed to the jus
in bello principle of civilian immunity. If everyone is a civilian who behaves peacefully, and
everyone refuses to surrender, and the rules of war forbid any intentional harming of civilians, then
the invader has no legitimate outlet for his coercive power. The likely "solution" would be for the
invader to appoint a new government, and start coercing the occupied people under the guise of
police power and judicial authority.
Criticism of Point 1
A deeper problem is that Hughan requires an amount of unity, discipline, and determination on the
part of an occupied people, that is unrealistic in many cases. The traditional options are:
1. Violent Resistance - guerrilla attacks, assassinations, sabotage, etc.
2. Passive Complicity - majority just wants to get on with normal life, have enough
to eat, etc.
3. Active Collaboration - by the politically dissatisfied, seeking a better lot in a new
order.
Any of these could screw up Hughan's strategy, especially 1 and 3. Although 2 is the most common
temptation, civilian-based defence could survive a certain amount of it. However, Gene Sharp warns
that even a small amount of violence by one's side will sharply counter the effectiveness of
nonviolent action as a technique.
"Success in nonviolent struggle depends to a very high degree on the persistence of the nonviolent
actionists in fighting with their own methods ... Violence by, or in support of, their side will sharply
counter the operations of the very special mechanisms of change in nonviolent action - even when
the violence is on a relatively small scale, such as rioting, injury, violent sabotage involving loss of
life, or individual assassinations. The least amount of violence will, in the eyes of many, justify
severe repression, and it will sharply reduce the tendency of such repression to bring
sympathy and support for the nonviolent actionists, and it may well, for several reasons, reduce the
number of resisters. Violence will also sharply reduce sympathy and support in the opponent's own
camp." (Gene Sharp, "The Technique of Nonviolent Action," p.159-160).
The point is that nonviolent and violent resistance don't mix well, and it only takes a bit of
violence to ruin a nonviolent campaign. This a bigger problem for Civilian-Based Defence than
normal civil disobedience, since it's more likely that a small minority, at least, will think it's right and
proper to violently resist an invasion.
Moreover, many nations have deep ethnic, racial, class, and ideological divisions. They may be
unified enough to hold together in normal times when there is a state to keep order, but a foreign
occupier can find "out groups" to collaborate against those previously in power, whether they be an
ethnic minority or those on the left or right politically. For example, the Germans in World War II
played the Croats against the Serbs in Yugoslavia and the Vichy right-wing against French leftists.

Gene Sharp
More recently, Gene Sharp has become the leading theorist of non-violent revolution and civilian
based defence as tactics. Drawing on the ideas of Gandhi and Thoreau, he has been called the
"Machiavelli of nonviolence" and the "Clausewitz of nonviolent warfare." An insight underlying
his work is that power ultimately depends on obedience which can be withdrawn. Some argue
that his scholarship has influenced resistance movements around the world, from Eastern Europe to
Iran and Egypt.
Sharp's writings on 'Civilian-Based Defense' were used by the Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian
governments during their separation from the Soviet Union in 1991. Lithuanian Defence Minister
Audrius Butkevicius declared at the time, "I would rather have this book than the nuclear bomb."
(Wikipedia, "Gene Sharp," accessed September 2018)
Sharp is known for compiling taxonomies of non-violent acts that include over 100 forms. They all
fall into 3 major classes:
1. Nonviolent Protest - marches, protests, vigils, public meetings
2. Noncooperation - strikes, boycotts, revenue refusal (i.e. non-payment of taxes)
3. Nonviolent Intervention - sit-ins, fasts, nonviolent obstruction (i.e. blocking
roads)
In the next section we'll look at some forms of civil disobedience that are controversial, as they blur
or cross the line from nonviolence into violence.

11.12. Violent Civil Disobedience

In the space between Nonviolent Resistance and the more restrained forms of Terrorism (i.e. that
avoid killing random bystanders), there is Violent Civil-Disobedience. While the Gandhi-King
tradition seeks to be fully non-violent, others would permit "violence to self, violence to property,
or minor violence against others" as part of civil disobedience.
If violence is defined as causing injury, one might argue that "non-violent acts or legal acts
sometimes cause more harm to others than do violent acts. A legal strike by ambulance workers may
well have much more severe consequences than minor acts of vandalism" (Kimberley Brownlee,
"Civil Disobedience," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2013).
Others might respond by defining violence in terms of rights violation, and argue that we have a
basic right not to be pelted with eggs or have hateful slogans graffitied on our home (i.e. security of
person and property), but not to the services of striking workers.
(1) Violence to Self
Should self-harm and suicide count as forms of violence? Libertarians would say no, since we own
ourselves and have a right to control our own body. On the other hand, suicide has been considered a
crime by Christianity, and some would consider killing oneself a violent act.

Two forms of protest we'll consider are the Hunger Strike and Self-Immolation. Hunger Strikes can
be divided into temporary fasting as a protest, and actually starving oneself to death.
Hunger Strikes - Suffragettes
The tactic of the Hunger Strike was pioneered by Marion Wallace Dunlop, a British Suffragette, in
1909. After being imprisoned for stencilling slogans on a wall of the House of Commons, Dunlop
said that she would not eat unless placed in the first division as befitted a political prisoner. After 91
hours of fasting she was released on grounds of ill health (John Simkin, "Hunger Strikes," Spartacus
Educational. http://spartacus-educational.com/Whunger.htm).
The idea spread quickly and became a signature tactic of the Suffragettes. It put the authorities in a
bind. They did not want to see women who'd committed minor offences dying in custody and
becoming martyrs, so they introduced a policy of force-feeding. The Suffragettes called this a form
of torture. It made the authorities look very coercive and violent - especially when Mary Clarke,
arrested for smashing windows, died shortly after being force fed in 1910. So the British government
switched to a policy of "cat and mouse" whereby suffragettes were allowed to hunger strike until
they became ill, released until they recovered, and then arrested again to serve out their sentence.
Fasting - Gandhi
Hunger Striking gained a lot of attention and was used by two other groups opposing the British
government - the Irish Republicans during the 1916-1923 revolutionary period and Gandhi's
independence movement in India. There is a tradition of fasting as protest going back to ancient
times in India, but Gandhi picked up on it only after the Suffragettes made it a cause célèbre.
Gandhi undertook 17 political fasts between 1913 and 1948, on three occasions going as long as 21
days. Most of these were not prison protests but in support of various causes. Gandhi fasted for
Hindu-Muslim unity, against sectarian violence, against anti-British violence, for the rights of the
Untouchables, in support of striking workers, and as a penance (Wikipedia, "List of Fasts
Undertaken by Mahatma Gandhi," accessed September 2018).
Starving to Death - Bobby Sands
The most famous hunger striker in recent decades is Bobby Sands, a member of the terrorist IRA
who starved himself to death over 66 days in 1981. Sands was serving time for weapons possession
after involvement in the bombing of a furniture store, and went on the hunger strike to demand
treatment as a political prisoner and to gain publicity for the IRA cause. In the latter regard he was
quite successful, with his saga making world news every day and his death setting off riots in Ireland
and Northern Ireland in which people were killed and buses were set on fire. Reactions to his suicide
by starvation were mixed:

"Cardinal Basil Hume, head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, condemned Sands,
describing the hunger strike as a form of violence. However, he noted that this was his personal
view. The Roman Catholic Church's official stance was that ministrations should be provided to the
hunger strikers who, believing their sacrifice to be for a higher good, were acting in good
conscience. ...
The Chicago Tribune wrote that "Mahatma Gandhi used the hunger strike to move his
countrymen to abstain from fratricide. Bobby Sands's deliberate slow suicide is intended to
precipitate civil war. The former deserved veneration and influence. The latter would be viewed, in a
reasonable world, not as a charismatic martyr but as a fanatical suicide, whose regrettable death
provides no sufficient occasion for killing others." (Wikipedia, "Bobby Sands," accessed September
2018)
Why wasn't Sands kept alive? A part of the answer is that ethical opinion has turned against forced
feeding, and in 1975 the World Medical Association banned doctors from force feeding prisoners
and said they should respect a prisoner's independent decision provided it is based on informed
consent. Moreover, Sands and his comrades were too dangerous to be let out on the "cat and mouse"
policy used for the Suffragettes.
Self-Immolation - Tibet
In certain Buddhist societies there is a practice of burning oneself to death as a protest. This is more
shocking than what Sands did but morally quite similar (unless you put a lot of stock in the
difference between active and passive means). Some Buddhists regard such a protest as an act of
compassion and self-sacrifice which is not intended to hurt anyone else. Self-immolation was done in
Southern Asia to protest the Vietnam War and more recently in Tibet as a protest against China's
occupation of the country.
"Since March 2009, more than 140 people are known to have set themselves on fire inside Tibet to
protest against the repressive Chinese occupation. Self-immolation protests peaked in 2012 when
more than 80 took place. There have been far fewer since 2013 but they are still a feature of Tibetan
resistance.

Although many monks and nuns have set themselves alight, most self-immolation protesters have not
been from religious institutions. They include teachers, students and herdsmen, as well as mothers
and fathers. ...

Many of the protesters have shouted slogans while on fire, including calling for the Dalai Lama's
long life and his return to Tibet, for the Panchen Lama to be freed, and for human rights and
freedom in Tibet.
Several have urged Tibetans to stay united and protect Tibetan identity, such as Tsering Gyal, a
young monk who set himself on fire in November 2013. Before dying he told his companions on the
way to the hospital: 'Today I self-immolated for reunion of Tibetans inside and outside Tibet. My
only wish for you is to be united and to work for the preservation of Tibetan language and tradition.
If we do these things, Tibetans will be reunited.' ...

The Chinese government has responded to the protests with a surge in activity by security forces, a
propaganda campaign against the protesters and punishments for protester’s families and
communities. Self-immolators who survived their protests have been detained and the whereabouts
and condition of many of them is still unknown.

Severe punishments are handed out to those accused of assisting or encouraging the protesters or
sharing information abroad. Frequently protesters' bodies are cremated by security forces to prevent
families carrying out traditional funeral ceremonies. Local communities are threatened with
punishment for holding prayer services or offering support to protesters' families.

China has described the protests as 'violent behaviour whose aim is to create an atmosphere of
terror' and accused the Dalai Lama of instigating the protests." The Dalai Lama has not called for
an end to the protests but has expressed his 'sadness' over them and urged the Chinese authorities to
'investigate what is the cause of this symptom, of these events'." (Free Tibet)
Claiming such a means of protest "aims to create an atmosphere of terror" seems pretty far-fetched,
and if one considers self-immolation "violent" it is much less so than actions of the Chinese
government or attempts to fight back militarily. I suspect this form of protest is more threatening to
Chinese power than conventional violence. People willing to burn themselves to protest you can be
very unnerving.

(2) Violence to Property

Does destroying property make one a violent insurgent or terrorist? I'd argue that it depends on the
degree of the damage and one's intent. If the damage is large-scale with the aim of inflicting
economic costs, or if the intent is to scare and intimidate, then you are crossing the line into
terrorism. If the damage is small-scale, the purpose is symbolic, and nobody is made to feel unsafe,
then it is just aggressive civil disobedience.

Suffragettes
The Suffragettes began with peaceful acts of civil disobedience such as chaining themselves to
railings, refusing to pay taxes and fines, and disrupting events by unfurling "votes for women"
banners. They moved on to minor acts against property, such as painting graffiti slogans and
smashing shop and office windows.

Eventually this escalated to cutting telegraph and telephone wires and setting fires in places
frequented by wealthy men (golf courses, horse racing tracks) while they were unattended. In 1913,
they carried out 250 arson or destruction attacks in a 6 months period, including the bombing of
cabinet minister David Lloyd George's unoccupied house. When asked why his house was targeted,
Emmeline Pankhurst said: "to wake him up" (i.e. to get his attention, not to threaten him).

The Suffragettes took care (and were lucky) that nobody was killed in their campaign. Mrs.
Pankhurst is said to have ordered that "there was not a cat or a canary to be killed; no life."
Nevertheless, some newspapers began to speak of their actions as a "Reign of Terror" or "Suffragette
Terrorism" (June Purvis, "Suffragette Actions were not Terrorism," The Guardian, June 6, 2018).
Some historians have argued that the violent and extreme tactics hurt, or at least did not help, the
cause of women's suffrage. It's hard to say where the natural dynamic of events might have gone, if
World War I hadn't led the Suffragettes to suspend their campaign. Votes for British women were
granted in 1918.

Ploughshares Eight
The Ploughshares Movement is a Christian pacifist and anti-nuclear weapons group. Their name
comes from a verse in Isaiah that says swords shall be beaten into ploughshares. Their most famous
action was in 1980, when brothers Daniel and Philip Berrigan and six others trespassed into a
General Electric facility in Pennsylvania where they hammered on two nuclear missile nose cones
and poured blood onto documents. The Ploughshares Eight were charged with felonies and spent
several years in prison.
This is a classic example of minor violence that is symbolic and intended to publicize a cause, not
intimidate or do significant damage.

(3) Minor Violence Against Others

Many would agree that assaulting others is terroristic and beyond the pale for any respectable form of
civil disobedience. But what if the violence takes the form of a prank that doesn't really hurt anyone,
though it may hurt their dignity? This brings us to Pie Throwing and Flour Bombing as protest
techniques.

Gay Rights Activists vs. Anita Bryant

Anita Bryant was a former Miss Oklahoma, pop singer, and spokeswoman for Florida Orange Juice,
who was also a fundamentalist Christian and campaigner against gay rights. In 1977, she became one
of the first to be pied for political reasons. The intent was to humiliate rather than to injure, Bryant
was reduced to tears, and LGBT and secular liberals thought it was quite funny.

Anita Bryant Pie in the Face (1977, 1:18 min. YouTube, Optional).

PETA vs. Anna Wintour, Gail Shea, Kim Kardashian

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, are animal rights activists who have used
similar tactics to protest the fur industry. Twice in 2005, Vogue editor Anna Wintour was pied in
Paris by PETA activists. They were protesting that she would run ads promoting fur but not accept
ads from PETA. In 2010, they pied Canada's Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Gail Shea, to protest
the seal hunt. In 2012, Kim Kardashian was in London promoting a new perfume, when she was
called a "fur hag" and flour bombed by a PETA protester. This prompted younger sister Khloe to
respond on her blog:

"I've been a vocal supporter of PETA for a long time but I have also been very vocal about anti-
bullying, so this was a huge disappointment for me. As you all know, I don't condone violence and
bullying and what happened last Thursday was just that. I am absolutely disgusted by their
behavior. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs and opinions — I personally don't wear fur but
that doesn't mean I am going to force my views on anyone else, ESPECIALLY by violating them."
(Khloe Kardashian, 2012)
Kim Kardashian Gets Flour Bombed (2012, 2:01 min. YouTube, Optional).
Or view image
It's interesting to compare PETA to the Suffragettes. Both are female-dominated activist groups who
aren't fully committed to nonviolence yet don't want to injure or kill anyone. The Suffragettes did
battle with male power, but for the anti-fur activists, the targets are often famous women who
influence a domain (fashion) that's more a female concern.

I will conclude with an article from an activist site reflecting on the morality and effectiveness of pie
throwing as a tactic.

On the Morality of Pie-Throwing

Bryan Farrell, Waging Nonviolence, July 20, 2011

How is it that despite thousands of people in the streets ... the top protest story of the past day is
Rupert Murdoch getting a pie in the face? On the one hand this News Corp. scandal is justifiably a
big deal and the kind of public scrutiny foisted upon Murdoch has been a long time coming. But on
the other hand, does a pie in the face really deserve top billing and constant replays on CNN,
MSNBC and surprisingly even Fox?

After my initial frustration at the second-class news status given to people risking their lives to end
oppressive regimes, I realized that there might be something to the whole pie-in-the-face protest—
something that we often talk about on this site as a successful strategy: humor. Not only does the
action lend itself to such irresistible headlines as “Just Dessert” and “Humble Pie,” but it dissolves
a quiet tension that might allow for greater public outcry.

Perhaps going a bit over the top, the Vancouver Sun interviewed a sociologist at the University of
British Columbia on this point:
Pieing someone in the face is a form of protest that is relatively harmless and gets people’s attention
quickly, said Christopher Schneider, a sociologist at the University of British Columbia.

“By the very nature of its definition, a protest is supposed to be disruptive,” Schneider said. It
should get people’s attention without being harmful, he said.

At a time when protests are scripted, require permits and are confined to special protest zones,
slapping a pie in someone’s face gets a lot of media attention. It’s also funny.

“It conjures up these images of silliness, clowns, cartoons, children, carnivals, comedy,” Schneider
said.

“It’s very difficult with all of that (symbolism) to redefine the pie as being a harmful, dangerous
assault.”

The public will usually dismiss it, even when criminal charges are laid.

Before anyone thinks I’m advocating a pie-in-the-face as a legitimate protest tactic, let us now
consider its shortcomings—of which there are many.

First off, what’s funny is always a subjective matter. Not everyone is going to think shoving a pie in
an 80-year-old man’s face is funny. In fact, many will be turned off by it. Here’s what The New
Republic's T.A. Frank had to say on that point:
"I can’t find anyone who approves of what happened yesterday, when news titan Rupert Murdoch
suffered a near-shaving-cream-pie in the face during a hearing before members of Parliament in
London. Everyone seems to agree that the pie-thrower, “activist” Jonnie Marbles, is a dumbass. We
even seem to agree that Rupert Murdoch’s wife, Wendi Deng, is a badass. (If you’re late to the story,
Wendi personally lunged at Marbles and smacked him on the head. Sadly, no black eye was
administered.)"

Frank is right. If you watch the video, the only thing you can see clearly is Murdoch’s wife reacting
with hair-trigger reflexes. She’s the star of the video. Not Jonnie Marbles.

Frank also points out that none of these pie-in-the-face videos are really all that funny. The idea is
funny, perhaps, but the execution never is.

"Being a conscientious journalist, I’ve watched a lot of pie-attack videos in the last 24 hours. One
thing they have in common is that they’re not funny. And I don’t just mean that I don’t find them
funny. Watch a few of them. Here’s Anita Bryant getting pied. Here’s Bill Gates getting pied.
Here’s Ann Coulter getting pied. Does any of them make you laugh? Does anybody in any of the
videos laugh? Invariably, the response of the gathered crowd is alarm followed by disgust. A whiff
of chaos, of a broken social compact, is in the air. Everyone is shaken."
More to the point, Frank argues that “pie-throwing amounts to the most violent way possible to
attack someone powerful without being likely to get in trouble for it.”
"A common defense of pie-throwing is that it’s, well, just a pie. But, of course, the person getting
attacked has no idea what the hell is about to hit him or her. In 1976, during a campaign
appearance in his first run for the U.S. Senate, Pat Moynihan got pied by a Yippie yelling “Fascist
pig.” Moynihan, a child of Hell’s Kitchen, was no softie, “but it scared the hell out of me,” he
told The New York Times. It had been “a violent act.”
The defense that the fear lasts only a short while—between the time you first notice you’re being
attacked and the time you realize it’s just a pie—doesn’t work, either. If fleeting fear were no
problem, then mock executions would be just hilarious."

Finally, though, it’s important to note that humor and fear are, more or less, side effects of the
action—not the purpose. Frank believes pie-throwing is motivated by a desire to “degrade and
humiliate.” On those grounds, as he suggests, it’s hard to praise. After all, Gandhi didn’t help
India achieve its independence through shaming its opponent. One of the greatest accolades he ever
received was from British historian Arnold Toynbee, who wrote “Gandhi made it impossible for us
to go on ruling India, but he made it possible to leave with dignity.”
Suffragette Emily Davison Killed - 100th Anniversary (2013, 7:14 min. YouTube).
Suffragettes Bomb Lloyd George's Home (2011, 2:12 min. YouTube).

9
a. In what ways can pie-throwing as a protest technique be seen as both violent and
non-violent? What do you think of the criticism of it presented by Farrell? And of
Khloe's response to PETA?

b. If we defend pie-throwing, do we logically have to accept the sort of political

behaviour described in this story about the egging of Trump supporters? Is that a
problem?
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Trump-woman-egged-video-San-Jose-
rally-7961394.php

c.11.13. Conclusion, Questions, References

d.Conclusion
e. This concludes our unit on Pacifism and Civil Disobedience. We started by distinguishing
nonviolent and anti-war pacifism and read short excerpts from examples of each. We used
the Coward of the Country as an extended example to discuss pacifism vs. just war. We
debated the pacifism of Robert L. Holmes, and considered pacifism in the light of major
ethical theories.
f. We then moved to more practical issues of Civil Disobedience in the ideas of Thoreau and
the campaigns of Gandhi and King. We considered the right of conscience and how it may be
justified to break the law as a protest. With civilian-based defence, we considered how such
 nonviolent techniques could be used to resist foreign invaders. Finally we discussed several
types of civil disobedience that involve limited forms of violence.
g. In the next unit, our theme is ending war. Some pacifist ideas will be considered, along with
ideas from realism and just war theory.
h.