[Rperry2174]

This is a good articulation of mlkjr's theology and dicipline around nonviolence, but I think its incomplete if you read it in isolation.

His strategy worked because it existed alongside MANY other voices, IMO the most underrated of which is Malcolm X, that rejected this "gradualism" outright and refused endless delay.

They weren't organizing violence but they were instead making it credible that there is a world where those "peaceful" people do not accept complicity or "no" for an answer.

This shifted the baseline of what a "compromise" could look like (as we today see baselines shift very frequently often in a less just direction)

Seen that way, nonviolence wasn't just a moral stance, it was one side of a coin and once piece of a broader ecosystem of pressure from different directions. King's approach was powerful because there were alternatives he was NOT choosing.

You cannot have nonviolence unless violence is a credible threat from a game-theory perspective. And that contrast made his path viable without endorsing the alternatives as a model

[Gagarin1917]

I’m not sure that logically tracks.

You (likely) act in a non-violent way every day. If you want some kind of change in your life, you achieve it non-violently.

Does that imply you are are actually a violent person that is choosing not to be violent? Are you implying “something violent” every day you act like a good person?

MLK didn’t have support because people were afraid of the alternative. They supported him because they agreed with him message.

I feel like you are just trying to justify violence to some degree.

[Rperry2174]

Let's say you live in an apartment building and your landlord locks you out and keeps you belongings. Police say its not their problem. Courts decide that they don't aare either. So now you have no recourse or body to complain to.

In that situation saying "i resolve problems non-violently every day" stops being relevenat. The mechanisms that allow you to do so (enforcement, law, etc) have been removed as they were for those fighting for civil rights.

You may still personally choose non-violence in this case, but I'd bet you would understand/sympathize/maybe-even-join those who decided to break into their apartments by force and grab the things that are rightfully theirs.

nobody is secretly violent ... just normal peaceful channels stoped working.

Recognizing that distinction isn't justifying violence its just explaining why nonviolence provides leverage in the first place

[Lord-Jobo]

And those mechanisms, the military, the police, and the legal system, rely on violence as the ultimate fallback when other options fail. So you may not be relying on violence to solve your problems, or the threat of violence, or the insinuation of it, but instead relying on the threat of someone ELSE’S violence. That is the social contract pretty fundamentally. And when people can no longer rely on those figures who are supposed to use violence on their behalf, we shouldn’t be surprised that they attempt to reclaim the ability to use force. The social contract has been voided, in their eyes. The premise and promise broken.

[kcplate]

> Let's say you live in an apartment building and your landlord locks you out and keeps you belongings. Police say it’s not their problem. Courts decide that they don't aare either. So now you have no recourse or body to complain to.

If all of the enforcement bodies and normal legal peaceful channels available to you don’t agree with your assessment there is probably a “why”. If the reason that your property was seized is because you chose to not pay your rent, then I am not sure understanding, sympathy, or joining in violence would be an appropriate response.

[antisol]

  If all of the enforcement bodies and normal legal peaceful channels available to you don’t agree with your assessment there is probably a “why”

Yeah, like maybe you didn't have $50,000 to appeal a bad decision made because a magistrate couldn't be bothered actually reading the evidence in front of them.

[kcplate]

If the case was truly just I suspect you could find pro bono or contingency legal services to handle your appeal much easier than people sympathetic to the violence.

[antisol]

ok, I happen to be looking for exactly that right now. Why don't you find me one.

[thrance]

Fraudsters usually don't resort to violence once they get caught. In your contrived example, the guy would probably end up paying what he owed and that would be that. Violence mostly emerges from people who feel that they are treated unfairly, and can't use civil channels to solve their issues. Which is why it's important to build a society that treats people fairly.

[kcplate]

> Which is why it's important to build a society that treats people fairly.

Who gets to measure that though? I don’t think we can assume that the presence of violence automatically indicates that society isn’t fair.

[thrance]

> I don’t think we can assume that the presence of violence automatically indicates that society isn’t fair.

I think it does, actually. The more unequal the country, the more violent it is. Which is why the best way to get rid of crime is not to give unlimited funding to the police (that has been shown to be very ineffective, and ruinous), it's to make sure no one needs to commit it. That will never get rid of all crimes, of course.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/06/07/the-star...

[lukan]

"Let's say you live in an apartment building and your landlord locks you out and keeps you belongings. Police say its not their problem. Courts decide that they don't aare either. So now you have no recourse or body to complain to.

In that situation saying "i resolve problems non-violently every day" stops being relevenat. The mechanisms that allow you to do so (enforcement, law, etc) have been removed as they were for those fighting for civil rights.

You may still personally choose non-violence in this case, but I'd bet you would understand/sympathize/maybe-even-join those who decided to break into their apartments by force and grab the things that are rightfully theirs."

I would say it depends. Are there depts of rent involved in that scenario? Did the locking out just happened out of the blue, or was it communicated before, that it would happen?

Apart from that, I surely see more easy examples of justifying violence - for example to stop other violence.

[direwolf20]

This happened to me. Police did nothing. I was informed I had the legal right to break the door down to get my belongings. I did so.

The only reason a scummy landlord doesn't enact violence against you for money is that he can expect violence against him in return. So it supports the claim. Nonviolence can only happen when backed up by the possibility of violence.

[9JollyOtter]

I've listened to a lot of Malcolm X. He was a better speaker IMO, his rhetoric was better. I believe he had a more accurate understanding of the reality of how power really works. It has nothing to do with wanting to justifying violence, Malcolm X made a number of matter of fact observations.

[bnlxbnlx]

I think the specific condition here is "change that someone else is willing to prevent using violence". I guess that is not present too often during everyday life.

[XorNot]

Everyday you're not trying to achieve political change.

And a lot of those interactions are backed by implied violence: people paying for things at stores is not because everyone has actually agreed on the price.

[9JollyOtter]

> people paying for things at stores is not because everyone has actually agreed on the price.

Yes it is. If a normal commodity item such as bottle of milk was outrageous overpriced in a particular store. I would just go to another store.

As for whether I would pay for something without the threat of violence. I do so everyday. I've walked out of stores by mistake with an item I haven't paid for and gone back into the store and paid for it. I don't like my things being stolen, and thus I don't steal other people's things.

I pay for my eggs from a farm and it is a honour system.

[zahlman]

> people paying for things at stores is not because everyone has actually agreed on the price.

... I genuinely can't fathom what it's like to live in a developed country and yet have such little social trust.

You really imagine that when others are in line at a checkout, they have the intrusive thought "I could just bolt and not pay, but I see a security guard so I better stay in line"? You really have that thought yourself?

Of course people have agreed on the price. That's why you don't see anyone trying to negotiate the price, even though they would be perfectly within their rights to try. And it's why you do see people comparison-shop.

[XorNot]

If you break the law, what happens to you? What does the state do to you?

Like say you persistently just refuse to pay a parking ticket after court orders to do so?

[zahlman]

I understand that. It is not relevant, and does not establish your original point.

[wrs]

You're missing the point -- I don't refuse to pay a parking ticket after the court orders me to do so. I don't stand in the checkout line trying to figure out how to run out without paying. I don't threaten people on the sidewalk and take their money when I notice there aren't any police around at the moment. I trust that the vast, vast majority of people act similarly. If they didn't, no amount of law enforcement would be enough.

[XorNot]

> I don't threaten people on the sidewalk and take their money when I notice there aren't any police around at the moment.

What do you think happens to people who do that though?

You keep telling me what you don't do and how it proves you're implicitly non violent but you can't even imagine framing that response in terms that don't include representatives of the state's monopoly on violence being within arms reach.

Implying violence is never necessary while repeatedly describing not doing violence even if the state's violence distributing apparatus isn't currently present rather undermines the case.

[direwolf20]

Why don't you? It's because violence will happen to you if you do. Nonviolence, backed by threats of violence.

[judahmeek]

> MLK didn’t have support because people were afraid of the alternative. They supported him because they agreed with him message.

You sound like you've never heard of political triangulation before.

[Gagarin1917]

You sound like you think everyone in the world is a political science major… they’re not. They don’t think like this.

[judahmeek]

I'm pretty sure Dr. King & Malcolm X did.

[oceansky]

He also had a 75% disapproval rating at the time of his killing.

The violence against him, in contrast with the nonviolence stand, made it stand out.

[Rperry2174]

yeah the crazy part about that is one uncomfortable point many through history (and in threads today) have made is that nonviolence implicitly assumes a moral audience. And that injustice, once clearly exposed will provoke people's conscience.

History obviously shows that that "moral audience" was certainly the minority then.

MLK was already forcing that confrontation and by most accounts was succeeding slowly-but-surely. But it wasn't until his assassination that people were forced to confront the contrast he had been trying to illuminate all along.

Even his disciplined non-violence he was met with brutal force (as were the peaceful protesters) and this forced some sort of moral reckoning for those who had deferred or were complicit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKnJL2jfA5A&feature=youtu.be

[pixl97]

If you give people one option it is a demand, and they may rightfully reject it.

Now, give people two options with one of them seeming much better it becomes a choice.

Violence is 100% an answer, it's just very rarely the best answer that can be provided.

[zahlman]

> His strategy worked because it existed alongside MANY other voices, IMO the most underrated of which is Malcolm X, that rejected this "gradualism" outright and refused endless delay.

I have read very many people claim this and exactly zero reasons provided by them why I should believe it is true.

It seems to me like basic common nature that if you see proponents of a cause behaving in a manner you find objectionable, that will naturally bias you against the cause. And I have, repeatedly, across a period of many years, observed myself to become less sympathetic to multiple causes specifically because I can see that their proponents use violence in spreading their message.

I've tried very many times to explain the above to actual proponents of causes behaving in manners I found objectionable (but only on the Internet, for fear of physical safety) and the responses have all been either incoherent or just verbally abusive.

> making it credible that there is a world where those "peaceful" people do not accept complicity or "no" for an answer.

This would only make sense if social change required action specifically from people in power, who in turn must necessarily act against their best interest to effect it.

If that were true, there would be no real motivation to try nonviolence at all, except perhaps to try to conserve the resources used to do violence.

> You cannot have nonviolence unless violence is a credible threat from a game-theory perspective

First, no, that makes no sense. If that were true, formal debate would never occur and nobody would ever actually try to convince anyone of anything in good faith. The premise is flawed from the beginning; you cannot apply game theory here because you cannot even establish that clearly defined "players" exist. Nor is there a well-defined "payoff matrix", at all. The point of nonviolent protest is to make the protested party reconsider what is actually at stake.

Second, in practice, violence is never actually reserved as a credible threat in these actions; it happens concurrently with attempts at nonviolence and agitators give no credible reason why it should stop if their demands are met. In fact, it very often comes across that the apparent demands are only a starting point and that ceding to them will only embolden the violent.

[bnlxbnlx]

> I have read very many people claim this and exactly zero reasons provided by them why I should believe it is true.

could you share some sources where people have discussed this? i'd like to understand their reasoning better

[zahlman]

No, because I am referring to a general memory of a general history of political discussions on the Internet across a period of ~15 years. It's hopefully understandable that at the time I did not have the foresight that I would be posting this today.

[alansaber]

Exactly, the potency comes from the fact that violence is the standard reaction

[atoav]

Essentially "good-cop-bad-cop" on a political level?

[bnlxbnlx]

intrigued by this. i've spent a lot of timer over the last years with very committed nonviolence folks, and i keep wondering about the conditions for this to work.

can you recommend any sources that discuss this idea?

[RickJWagner]

Today, history remembers MLK as a great man. There are parades in his honor, workers are given a day off. Rosa Parks is another peaceful pioneer credited with bringing strides forward.

Malcolm X and others are already fading from memory.

[I-M-S]

I believe that was the OP's point: we remember a sanitized version of the myth of MLK that flatters modern sensibilities, while ignoring Malcom X because we don't like to acknowledge he played an equally important role in bringing about change.

[direwolf20]

Remembrance does not imply causation

[hackable_sand]

You should get that checked out.

[RickJWagner]

Ask any kid “ Who was MLK?”

Then ask “Who was Malcolm X?”

You’ll see.

[GeorgeOldfield]

yup. watch "the interview" with MLK he clearly explains what he thinks about violent insurrection.

the article is whitewashing

[timschmidt]

"I do not know whether it is to yourself or Mr. Adams I am to give my thanks for the copy of the new constitution. I beg leave through you to place them where due. It will be yet three weeks before I shall receive them from America. There are very good articles in it: and very bad. I do not know which preponderate. What we have lately read in the history of Holland, in the chapter on the Stadtholder, would have sufficed to set me against a Chief magistrate eligible for a long duration, if I had ever been disposed towards one: and what we have always read of the elections of Polish kings should have forever excluded the idea of one continuable for life. Wonderful is the effect of impudent and persevering lying. The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, and what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusets? And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it’s motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13. states independant 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure. Our Convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusets: and in the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite to keep the hen yard in order. I hope in god this article will be rectified before the new constitution is accepted."

-- Thomas Jefferson

https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jeffers...

[zahlman]

My former experience has been that this quote is justification for one's political ingroup to be violent, but evidence that one's political outgroup (when they cite it) is morally unconscionable.

[timschmidt]

I purposefully refrained from judgement or commentary either way when posting it. My intention was merely to show that this line of thinking about the duality of violence and non-violence is something the nation's founders themselves were thinking about. It is the reason I posted the quote in full, instead of the abbreviated form most commonly referenced. I hope that the added context lends nuance and perspective which might otherwise be overlooked.