The Sociology of Nonviolence (Georgetown University Syllabus, 2007)

The Sociology of Nonviolence

Spring Semester 2007

Georgetown University

Prof. Colman McCarthy

Every conflict, whether with a neighbor across the street or a nation across the ocean, will be settled either violently or nonviolently. The problem with violent solutions was described by Hannah Arendt: “Violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is to a more violent world.” This course offers an examination of the sociological methods of nonviolence: where and how they have been practiced, the practitioners, their successes and failures, and the relevance of nonviolent solutions in a world where military violence, domestic violence, environmental violence, economic violence, emotional violence, racial violence and gender violence are often as routine as alternatives are exceptional.

The course is discussion-based. Dissent and debate is welcomed. One skeptic enlivens the class more than a dozen passive agreers. Readings from the course texts will be assigned at the end of the class for the next week’s class.

COURSE TEXTS

Strength Through Peace: the Ideas and People of Nonviolence

Solutions to Violence

All of One Peace

Two papers between 1200 and 1500 words are expected. The first is due at the eighth week of the course, the second at the final class. The writing should be fresh, reflective, imaginative and cliché-free. The ideal paper is a mix of personal reflection, analysis and fact-based commentary. Write papers that are uniquely your own that no one else could write. The papers should be directly related to the readings in our texts and possibly your own life experiences involving violence or nonviolence.

The best reason for missing class is a death: mine or yours. Poor attendance doesn’t help the final grade, nor do late papers. If you miss a class, check with a classmate for the next week’s reading assignment.

Papers that are exceptionally well-written, creative and unique earn A’s. Papers that are above average, flow with well-constructed prose and have occasional flashes of excellence earn B’s. Papers that show only an ordinary and average command of language skills and aren’t especially noteworthy in either style or intelligence earn C’s. Papers that read as if they were dashed off the night before the due date, or give the appearance of being recycled from old papers from other classes or purchased off the net, and cause the professor to fall asleep after the third paragraph, earn D’s or F’s—depending how long the sleep lasts.

AVAILABILITY

I’m reachable at the Center for Teaching Peace, 4501 Van Ness St., Washington DC 20016 or 202 537-1372 or cmccarthy@starpower.net. Appointment can be easily scheduled.

The following is a plan of what’s ahead, and like all plans involving diverse ideas and people, subject to changes when needed.

An exploration of the meaning of nonviolence, including the differences between practical nonviolence and spiritual nonviolence as well as the differences between the nonviolence of the early Christian church and the nonviolence of modern strikes and boycotts.

A discussion of Gandhian nonviolence. Is the argument valid that Gandhi’s methods worked only because the British were allegedly civilized and would not have succeeded under a ruthless regime? And what’s to be made of Gandhi’s belief that “enlightened anarchy” is the ideal form of government?

Assigned readings: chapter 5 in “Strength Through Peace”

The personal life of Gandhi, including a viewing of a documentary that raises the question of why Gandhi was seen by the world as a saintly visionary but at home he was emotionally cruel to his wife and a misfit to his four sons.

Assigned readings: chapter 3 in “Solutions to Violence.”

Where has nonviolence succeeded? Since 1986, at least seven brutal governments—in Poland, Chile, the Philippines, South Africa, Georgia, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia--have been taken down by organized nonviolent resistance and by citizens who had no armies, bombs or bullets.

Assigned readings: chapter 1 in “Solutions to Violence.”

But what about World War II and the menace of Hitler’s Germany? Nonviolence, it is said, was irrelevant. The class discussion will be on both the Danish resistance to the German invasion of the early 1940s and the story of Le Chambon, France, “the town that defied the Holocaust.”

Assigned readings: chapter 11 in “Solutions to Violence” and chapter 6 in “Strength Through Peace.”

An examination of the teachings—both by words and example—of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement. Both a pacifist and anarchist, Day practiced the works of mercy and rescue while also being defiant of governmental militarism.

Assigned readings: chapter 2 in “Solutions to Violence.”

Week Seven:

For Dorothy Day, the Vietnam War was the overriding issue. Today it is the Iraq war. As many as 15 similarities between the two wars have been analyzed by journalists and others. The documentary “Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam” will be shown.

Assigned readings: chapter 2 in “All of One Peace.”

Where have nonviolent solutions been rejected? An exploration of the death penalty, as practiced in the United States. Do recent Supreme Court decisions banning the execution of juvenile offenders and the mentally disabled suggest that capital punishment is on the way out?

Assigned readings: chapter 3 “All of One Peace.”

Those who oppose capital punishment are often told that they would assuredly change their minds if a member of their family was murdered. Perhaps. But perhaps not. The class will be visited by a guest speaker whose daughter was killed and how the mother, truly heroic, became a leader in the movement to abolish the death penalty.

Assigned readings: chapter 10 “Strength Through Peace.”

If the leading cause of injury among American women is being harmed by a man she knows—husband or boyfriend, ex-husband or ex-boyfriend—how does nonviolence work in personal relationships and within families?

Assigned readings:

Chapter 11 “Strength Through Peace.”

Week Eleven

Many in the peace movement, or at least those who believe that nonviolence has to be practiced not only theorized, are working to end the war against animals. As the dominant species, humans have surely given themselves the legal right to kill and exploit animals—for every reason from food to entertainment—but does this equate to a moral right?

Assigned readings: chapter 8 in “Solutions to Violence.”

Week Twelve

The nonviolence of Martin Luther King, Jr. Was he right to argue that the U.S. government is the world’s most violent and that the excesses of military spending—now above $500 billion annually or about $14,000 per second—has pushing America to spiritual death?

Assigned readings: chapter 5 in “Solutions to Violence.”

Week Thirteen

How far can nonviolence be taken? Plenty far, for some. This class will examine those who refuse to pay federal taxes that Congress gives to the Department of Defense, known until 1943 as the Department of War.

The tax refusal movement is not to be confused with the wider one of tax evasion.

Assigned readings: chapter 6 in “Solutions to Violence.”

Week Fourteen

The Quakers, the Mennonites, the Church of the Brethren, the Bruderhofs: these are the peace churches whose members do not raise their children to kill other people’s children. They go to jail rather than go to war. They believe that Barbara Ward had it right: “There is old Roman proverb that says, ‘if you would wish for peace then prepare for war.’ Rubbish! If you would wish for peace then offer alternatives to war.”

No assigned readings, only an assigned activity. It’s springtime. Tell someone you love them. Thank the janitors at Georgetown, and the cafeteria workers, and those who cut the grass and clean the toilets, for all they have done to make your life better and let you enjoy the supreme luxury of college. And write a letter of thanks to one of your elementary school teachers for getting you started. And then a letter of thanks —handwritten, no email—to your parents for all their patience and love that has brought you this far. Soon enough, you will be paying your children what you owe your parents.