Mark Van Steenwyk has an interesting post up at Jesus Manifesto called The 25 Lessons of Nonviolence. I don’t agree with all of them (and Mark doesn’t necessarily either), but they are thought-provoking nonetheless.
A few of my favourites:
- Nations that build military forces as deterrents will eventually use them.
- The state imagines it is impotent without a military because it cannot conceive of power without force.
- The miracle is that despite all of society’s promotion of warfare, most soldiers find warfare to be a wrenching departure from their own moral values.
2 responses to “A Few Lessons of Nonviolence”
Yes. These are very interesting.
Number two also applies very well to state mandated education. As a future teacher, I often wonder if any teacher has ever considered letting students have some say in what they do instead of forcing them to do everything the state mandates that they do.
Danny: Very few teachers would consider that, precisely because it’s difficult to conceive that some of the greatest power is found by laying it down…