Years ago I was bouncing on the trampoline with my then five year old son, when he became a bit too exuberant and accidentally kicked me in the crotch. In pain – and perceiving his transgression as an act of carelessness – I instantly retaliated by giving him a light swat on his behind. That it was a light swat didn’t matter — the injury I inflicted was more emotional than physical. Stunned by my un-fatherly behavior, my son glared at me with the eyes of the betrayed. “You’re an adult,” he said. “Adults don’t hit children.”
My shame was instant.
Retaliation is a natural human instinct. Hurt me and I’ll want to hurt you back. Not only does this act of revenge give me a short-lived, dopamine-infused jolt of satisfaction, it also, hopefully, convinces you not to hurt me again.
It's that hope, however, that often proves unfounded. Rather than convincing you to back down, it does the opposite: Now you want to retaliate, setting in motion a cycle of violence that too often ends in unnecessary harm and even tragedy.
That of course is the lesson of war — a lesson we've repeated so many times it's amazing we still haven't gotten the point. So why not? One big reason is because we don't see any viable alternative. If I don't match or exceed your level of violence, how else do I take away your power to hurt me?
Well, the fact is there are alternatives. Effective alternatives. Which brings me to my podcast guest this month, political scientist Maria J. Stephan.
Co-Lead and Chief Organizer at The Horizons Project and the former Director of the Program on Nonviolent Action at the United States Institute of Peace, Maria Stephan is the co-author (with Erica Chenoweth) of the award-winning book, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. The book shares the result of more than two years of research focused on the question: can nonviolent civil resistance be successful even against the most militarily sophisticated and brutal regimes? Their answer, based on analyzing over 330 violent and nonviolent campaigns, is an unequivocal "yes." In fact, they found that nonviolent campaigns were twice as effective as violent ones in achieving their political goals.
It's a stunning finding. And at a time when the war in Ukraine threatens the entire planet with a nuclear catastrophe, and when political turmoil in the U.S. has people wondering if we're headed toward a civil war, it's a finding that, more than ever, is essential to our collective future.
So please, check out my podcast with Maria Stephan. In the first half you’ll learn about what non-violent action is, why it’s so powerful, the forces working against non-violent action today, and how those forces can be overcome. In the second half Stephan talks about her current work at The Horizons Project, which focuses on the threat of authoritarianism in the United States. She discusses the U.S.’s long history of authoritarian tendencies, exactly how those tendencies are manifesting today, and how the tools and strategies of nonviolent action can be used to effectively counter them.
In addition to the podcast, below are two other resources on non-violent action that you may find particularly of interest.
A Force More Powerful is a two-part, multiple-award-winning documentary series “on one of the 20th century’s most important and least-known stories: how nonviolent power overcame oppression and authoritarian rule. It includes six cases of movements, and each case is approximately 30 minutes long.” This is the documentary that motivated Maria to study nonviolent movements.
The Strength of Nonviolence in Ukraine. Yes, there’s a war in Ukraine. But as Maria mentions in the podcast, there’s also a very strong, rarely covered nonviolent movement as well. This website is a rich resource on the effectiveness of nonviolent action, even, and perhaps especially, in the midst of war.