What Is Nonviolent Resistance?

Starting with Martin Luther King Jr’s Trip to India and Moving Toward an Understanding of His Philosophy for Social Change

If my goal is to make the world a better place, how closely should I study the writing and thinking of Mahatma Gandhi and MLK Jr? That was the question I posed to Bryan Caplan in a recent ask-me-anything. Bryan’s response…

I doubt that even their biggest fans think you gain much from carefully reading their words. It's all about their simple/simplistic ideas plus their legendary personal charisma. They had mass appeal because you can explain their thought in minutes.

As a non-fan, though, the best I can say is that the alternatives were probably worse.

I’ll have more to say about Bryan’s response another time, but I’m pretty sure that there’s more to King than Bryan realizes. My goal for this post is to introduce the concept of nonviolent resistance and begin playing with it. In a later post we’ll nail down, not only King’s version of nonviolent resistance, but try to understand his leadership philosophy in general. Let’s begin.

What is nonviolent resistance?

In The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. the reader is given a taste King’s philosophy of nonviolent social change. Let’s look at a few passages from Chapter 13 Pilgrimage to Nonviolence and Chapter 14 The Sit-In Movement to understand what this philosophy might be. Along the way, we’ll travel with King on his journey through India and the South.

In February of 1959, after recovering from a near-fatal stabbing, Dr. King, his wife Coretta, and his friend Dr. Lawrence Reddick¹ embark for India.

For a long time I had wanted to take a trip to India. Even as a child, the entire Orient held a strange fascination for me—the elephants, the tigers, the temples, the snake charmers, and all the other storybook characters.

While the Montgomery boycott was going on, India's Gandhi was the guiding light of our technique of nonviolent social change. So as soon as our victory over bus segregation was won, some of my friends said: "Why don't you go to India and see for yourself what the Mahatma, whom you so admire, has wrought?"

On his tour of India, Dr. King is showered with hospitality and treated as a celebrity.

We had a grand reception in India. The people showered upon us the most generous hospitality imaginable. Almost every door was open so that our party was able to see some of India's most important social experiments and talk with leaders in and out of government, ranging from Prime Minister Nehru, to village councilmen…Since our pictures were in the newspapers very often it was not unusual for us to be recognized by crowds in public places and on public conveyances. Occasionally I would take a morning walk in the large cities, and out of the most unexpected places someone would emerge and ask: "Are you Martin Luther King?"

The people of India have common cause with King and his movement.

We had hundreds of invitations that the limited time did not allow us to accept. We were looked upon as brothers, with the color of our skins as something of an asset. But the strongest bond of fraternity was the common cause of minority and colonial peoples in America, Africa, and Asia struggling to throw off racism and imperialism.

Over the course of his six-week tour of India, Dr. King speaks to and with thousands of people.

We had the opportunity to share our views with thousands of Indian people through endless conversations and numerous discussion sessions. I spoke before university groups and public meetings all over India. Because of the keen interest that the Indian people have in the race problem these meetings were usually packed. Occasionally interpreters were used, but on the whole I spoke to audiences that understood English.

Toward the end of chapter 13, King provides us with a statement that approaches a definition of nonviolent resistance:

True nonviolent resistance is not unrealistic submission to evil power. It is rather a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love, in the faith that it is better to be the recipient of violence than the inflicter of it, since the latter only multiplies the existence of violence and bitterness in the universe, while the former may develop a sense of shame in the opponent, and thereby bring about a transformation and change of heart.

It “is better to be the recipient of violence than the inflicter of it, since the latter only multiplies the existence of violence.” This is a bold and important feature of King’s strategy.

In the Israeli-Arab conflict do we see either side using this strategy? Would it be appropriate?

Another important aspect of nonviolent resistance is that it “may develop a sense of shame in the opponent, and thereby bring about a transformation and change of heart.” When I think about the opponent feeling shame, I have this image of bringing an undeniable truth to people who have become complacent and dogmatic. Their feeling of shame is the painful warning that they must change.

Change of heart is the goal, but how can we employ this strategy most effectively? What does King mean by, “be the recipient of violence?” This doesn’t seem like an easy idea to sell.

Reasonable people will disagree on implementation specifics, and any one practitioner will likely want to employ different versions of this philosophy to fit different contexts. There are many contextual questions to consider. Who are we up against? What are we fighting for? What have we got to lose? What are the alternatives? What are the costs and benefits?

King’s philosophy of nonviolent resistance is of course based on Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy, which seems to me, somewhat unrealistic and impractical— i.e. very difficult to implement in “tough” cases. Included in King’s autobiography is this statement from Gandhi preparing for nonviolent protest:

If you are hit, don’t hit back; even if they shoot at you, don’t shoot back. If they curse you, don’t curse back. Just keep moving. Some of us might have to die before we get there. Some of us might be thrown in jail before we get there, but let’s keep moving.

As a philosophy for social change— applicable to all situations— this is difficult to live by. In certain contexts, aspects of Gandhi’s philosophy would be irrational. Other aspects seem universal, prudent and powerful.

Assuming this statement describes the gist of Gandhian nonviolent resistance, what are your thoughts on it? To what extent did King actually carry out this pure version of nonviolent resistance?

It seems that we can improve upon this Gandhian version of nonviolent resistance by borrowing its prudent parts and combining them with rational acts of self-defense.

For example, in certain rare situations, it might be appropriate to utilize a firearm in self-defense. Whether or not a firearm or other means of self-defense would be wise or effective depend many factors, but at a minimum being ready to defend oneself offers insurance.

Now let’s look at Chapter 14. It begins with King moving with his family from Montgomery, Alabama to Atlanta, Georgia.

After four years as president of the Montgomery Improvement Association and five years as a resident of Montgomery, I decided to move from Montgomery to Atlanta. I would become co-pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta and thereby have more time and a better location to direct the Southwide campaigns of the SCLC.

For a year the Southern Christian Leadership Conference had been pleading with me to give it the maximum of my time, since the time was ripe for expanded militant action across the South. After giving the request serious and prayerful consideration, I came to the conclusion that I had a moral obligation to give more of my time and energy to the whole South. This was only possible by moving closer to the headquarters where transportation was more flexible and time hitherto consumed in longer travel could be saved and utilized for planning, directing, and supervising.

Note the word Christian here. How is Christianity a source of strength for Dr. King? Is Christianity likely to be equally effective today? If not, how can we ameliorate its deficiencies? Should we try to ameliorate its deficiencies?

As we read in the next passage, leaving Montgomery was not easy for King.

I had the painful experience of having to leave Montgomery for Atlanta. It was not easy for me to decide to leave a community where bravery, resourcefulness, and determination had shattered the girders of the old order and weakened confidence of the rulers, despite their centuries of unchallenged rule. It was not easy to decide to leave a city whose Negroes resisted injustice magnificently and followed a method of nonviolent struggle that became one of the glowing epics of the twentieth century. I hated to leave Montgomery, but the people there realized that the call from the whole South was one that could not be denied.

This was the creative moment for a full-scale assault on the system of segregation. The time had come for a bold, broad advance of the Southern campaign for equality.

I note King’s use of phrases “militant action” and “full-scale assault.” These certainly aren’t nonviolent phrases. What might this say about his strategy of nonviolent resistance? Is King speaking metaphorically here or did his strategy actually employee aggression?

During this period, King is trying to slow down; the demands on his time are overwhelming.

After returning from India I decided that I would take one day a week as a day of silence and meditation. This I attempted on several occasions, but things began to pile up so much that I found myself using that particular day as a time to catch up on so many things that had accumulated. I knew that I could not continue to live with such a tension-filled schedule. My whole life seemed to be centered around giving something out and only rarely taking something in. My failure to reflect would do harm not only to me as a person, but to the total movement. For that reason I felt a moral obligation to do it.

Can you relate with King’s desire for a day of silence and meditation? How can we bring more silence and meditation to our lives?

Continuing on…What exactly is happening with the Civil Rights Movement in 1960? I am still learning, but here is King’s perspective.

In 1960 an electrifying movement of Negro students shattered the placid surface of campuses and communities across the South. The young students of the South, through sit-ins and other demonstrations, gave America a glowing example of disciplined, dignified nonviolent action against the system of segregation. Though confronted in many places by hoodlums, police guns, tear gas, arrests, and jail sentences, the students tenaciously continued to sit down and demand equal service at variety store lunch counters, and they extended their protest from city to city. Spontaneously born, but guided by the theory of nonviolent resistance, the lunch counter sit-ins accomplished integration in hundreds of communities at the swiftest rate of change in the civil rights movement up to that time.

In this next excerpt, we learn of three important features of King’s method of nonviolent resistance.

I urged students to continue the struggle on the highest level of dignity. They had rightly chosen to follow the path of nonviolence. Our ultimate aim was not to defeat or humiliate the white man but to win his friendship and understanding. We had a moral obligation to remind him that segregation is wrong. We protested with the ultimate aim of being reconciled with our white brothers.

King urges practitioners of nonviolent resistance to:

• Act in the highest levels of dignity;

• Be aware of your moral obligation to remind your opponent of their wrong;

• Seek your opponent’s friendship and aim for reconciliation (as an ultimate goal).

I’m completely on board with all of these behaviors. In the context of bringing about social change, do these behaviors/strategies remind you of anyone?

They remind me of Milton Friedman and Bryan Caplan. Friedman almost always has a smile on his face as he is talking with his opponents. Caplan preaches to his children: “try to make friends wherever you go.” Bryan is assertive in his communication of truths and recommends the book How to Win Friends and Influence People.²

In reading these passages you might also think of the Bible— specifically stories of Jesus Christ. Some of these stories are obviously metaphorical, but I say, still valuable. People often, and appropriately, use the word “love” in association with Jesus, especially when it comes to very delicate and personal issues, but I find the word “respect” to be more valuable in this situation. Let’s expand on this.

Here is King describing the sit-in protest against lunch counter segregation.

The most significant aspect of this student movement was that the young people knocked some of the oldsters out of their state of apathy and complacency. What we saw was that segregation could not be maintained in the South without resultant chaos and social disintegration. One may wonder why the movement started with the lunch counters. The answer lay in the fact that there the Negro had suffered indignities and injustices that could not be justified or explained. Almost every Negro had experienced the tragic inconveniences of lunch counter segregation. He could not understand why he was welcomed with open arms at most counters in the store, but was denied service at a certain counter because it happened to be selling food and drink. In a real sense the "sit-in" represented more than a demand for service; it represented a demand for respect.

This is an important passage. King refers to “oldsters” in a “state of apathy and complacency.” What does this mean?

I’ll answer this question by pointing to my favorite aspect of the school my children attend. At the front of each classroom is a poster that reads:³

I am here to learn.

I respect myself and my rights.

I respect others and their rights.

In order for the teacher to teach and the students to learn, there must be order and respect in the classroom. Students that desire to learn must stand-up for themselves; must stand-up for their rights to learn; and must stand up for order. Within the classroom, this often happens through a chain of events that involve their parents, administrators and teachers, but it begins with them voicing their feelings about disrespectful behavior in their classroom. Similarly, teachers that desire to teach at the highest levels of performance must demand respect and order from students.

In this K-8 school, the classroom is not a free-speech zone. Rather it is a zone of respect for learning and teaching. Students are paying tuition to learn; they have a right to learn what the teacher is trying to teach.

Deviants from this goal are given opportunities to comport. If they choose not to be respectful, they are given “thinking time” outside of the classroom or discussion time with an administrator.

Are these norms of respect applicable and common on college campuses today?

We can apply these classroom rules of conduct to our lives in general. For example:

• I want to be better. I want to learn and grow throughout my life.

• Out of respect for myself and my longterm growth I will use my time and resources wisely; I will only associate with, or at least try to associate with, people that I respect; I will stand-up for myself and my rights.

• Out of respect for myself and my longterm grown I will respect others and their rights. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

In this behavior management poster students are made aware of their rights.

I respect myself and my rights.

I respect others and their rights.

What are these rights? Many—but first and foremost they are the rights of life, liberty and property.

• By “life” I think of one’s body. You are free to do what you please with your body, so long as you respect others and their rights. If you use your body to do work— to produce food, shelter, protection and comforts for yourself, or to earn money in the service of others— you can and should demand that the fruits of your labor not be forced from your hand.

• By “liberty” I think of the ways in which you act, think, believe, learn, communicate, and express yourself. I also think of the right to protect yourself, maintain your privacy and choose who to associate with. You are free to act in the way that you please so long as you respect others and their rights.

• By “property” I think of one’s private property— one’s stuff. Every child is born with an understanding of “his” or “hers.” This innate sense of ownership can be thought of as one’s God-given nature, or in a secular sense, a fact of biological evolution. The fact that all children are born with the sense of ownership for their stuff comes from evolution; those that exist today, survived in part because they possessed this advantageous trait of ownership. For example, “That is my food” or “This is my body. Don’t touch.” Those that didn’t have this trait likely died. Sharing your stuff is a choice, not a requirement. Voluntary communes have attempted to extinguish this trait in children. It doesn’t work.

The right of “liberty” obviously overlaps with the rights of “life” and “property,” and vice versa, but it helps to describe them individually. In reality, they are connected, monolithic and inseparable. They represent important aspects of us; what it means to be human.

Getting back to our main topic…

Nonviolent resistance is a strategy that seeks to fulfill one’s natural desire for respect, i.e., 1) respect from others and 2) for oneself. The two are obviously linked. Let’s explore this.

Nonviolent resistance is dignified resistance and represents a demand for respect. It sounds like this:

• I am worthy of respect, I deserve respect and I demand respect.

• Your disrespectful behavior is holding me back, preventing my growth and preventing me from discovering what I want to become.

• I demand that you respect my rights or else I’m going to do X with the utmost dignity and without violence.

This need for growth and respect doesn’t ever stop. It is insatiable. It is the backbone of certain religious traditions in which practitioners strive to become perfect. For example:

• I desire the respect of those that I respect. I especially desire the respect of those that I most respect.

• I desire the admiration of those that I most admire.

• I seek the love of those that I most love.

• I want to be understood, heard, and recognized for my accomplishments and for my character.

• I want to be truly deserving of this respect, admiration and love.

• I want to express my love, respect and admiration to those that are worth loving, respecting and admiring.

Our survival and our pursuit of happiness depend these behaviors. These ideas form the foundation for nonviolent resistance.

So, have we answered the fundamental question that we started with? What is nonviolent resistance? No, and I don’t think we’ve consumed enough of King’s teachings to answer this question, but let’s at least try write down a “problematic definition of nonviolent resistance.”

This will be my “best definition of nonviolent resistance for today,” blended with or actually starting with King’s definition (to the extent that we understand his definition based on these chapters of his autobiography). As you’ll see I’m using quotation marks here for good reason. Here we go.

“Nonviolent resistance:”

• Represents a demand for respect;

• Is a courageous confrontation of evil (i.e. confrontation with disrespectful or unjust behavior) by the power of love (i.e. power of self-respect and respect for my opponent);

• Can be effective even when I am the recipient of violence because such an act may develop a sense of shame in my opponent;

• Can be superior to using violence because violence can multiply the existence of violence and bitterness in the universe;

• Elevates actions only of the highest levels of dignity (i.e. respect);

• Aims for friendship and reconciliation with my opponents (as an ultimate goal);

• May employ means of self-defense including a prudently considered and justified first-strike only in a case of self-defense.

The last bullet is obviously problematic for a philosophy called nonviolent resistance, but I believe that the Gandhian version of nonviolent resistance— and King’s to the extent that it is similar to Gandhi’s— goes too far. The philosophy of nonviolent resistance can take on irrational beliefs and behaviors that may lead to regrettable costs and unnecessary self-sacrifice.

Contradicting Gandhi, I would say that there are situations in which a first-strike is prudent, effective and preferred. A violent first-strike used against an imminent and likely threat might be the best decision; it can be an act of self-defense and may also be perceived by observers as act of self-defense.

Ideally we want both— actual self-defense and the perception of self-defense. We can’t however control the perception of others. Thus we must prioritize actual self-defense over perceptions of self-defense. The effectiveness of a first-strike, should be, if possible, carefully considered. In doing so we should always keep in mind Sowell’s Law⁴: “There are no solutions, only trade-offs.”

One huge factor to consider in this trade-off is the possibility of jail or prison time. Nonviolent protest can result in incarceration. It certainly did for King. In certain places, prisons and jails are so awful, few would be willing to spend a second in either.⁵

Okay, that is it for now. I’m nearing the halfway point of King’s autobiography. Upcoming chapters that I may write about include “Malcolm X,” “Watts,” and “Black Power.”

Also, we have not finished our discussion of nonviolent resistance. We have loose ends; we need to read more; we need to revisit and possibly revise our starting questions; we ended here today with a “problematic definition.” How is it problematic?

This idea of a first-strike in the name of self-defense brings into the picture the concept of war. War is huge matter to deal with, and we should ask how it fits into our philosophy. Let’s deal with that next time.

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1. Dr. Reddick is also the author of Crusader Without Violence: The First Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr, which I have not read. Link here.

2. Link to Bryan Caplan’s book club on How to Win Friends & Influence People here.

3. Challenger School was founded by Barbara Baker. I am told that Mrs. Baker came up with the behavior management poster used in each Challenger School classroom.

I am here to learn

I respect myself and my rights.

I respect others and their rights.

4. Coined by Arnold Kling.

5. Maybe we should consider improving them? Or at least consider making them safe?