Nonviolence

Reading through Mark Kurlansky's new book 'Nonviolence', is a revelation.

The book is well researched and informative. He presents a history of nonviolence and related peace movements from the early Christians up through the present time. The book is brief but its chocked full of facts and information.

The New York Peace Society was the first peace society organized in the US. The society arose out of opposition to the War of 1812. Opposition to that war was extensive and almost led to the Northern states succeeding from the Union.

The records of the society appear to have been well kept and are available for purchase as microfilm.

Kurlanksy raises lots of questions and will provoke your understanding of pacifism and the distinctly different concept of nonviolence.

One critical point is the simple fact that there is no proactive word for nonviolence in the English language. It is expressed as the negation of violence, non-violence. Imagine if there was no term for war and war was expressed as the negation of peace. So war is nonpeace.

Nonviolence is far more than that negation. It is an extremely active state of being. Think about it. It includes an understanding of external violence as in all of the wars, armed conflicts, criminality, etc etc that occur, internal violence as in an understanding of the degree of your own violent tendencies, the interaction of the external and internal which is possibly the most salient aspect, and the peaceful alternatives to violence as a basic and ongoing understanding. So we are talking about a BIG project.