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VALIDITY IN NATURE
ructive that, if used to their fullest capacity, the annihilation of civilization would very likely result. The second is that history as a matter of fact demonstrates two certainties, that violence and wars have created more problems than they have solved, and that nonviolence, when tried, has worked not only on the personal but on the inter-social and international levels.
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Further reflection leads us to recognize that violence needs to be justified, while non-violence does not need any justification. On reading history, we find that the protagonists of war are giving all kinds of reasons for their acts of violence - to establish justice, because one's country is in danger of being taken over, the right of self-determination, to make the world safe for democracy, freedom from tyranny, offense is the best defense to preserve liberty. The said reasons appear grandly sounding. However, if there was not something inherently wrong with violence, why would its users be so concerned about justifying violence ! The reason might be that love-and-non-violence is the rule and violence is the exception. Love or non-violence is the normal or ordinary state of man; hatred or violence is extra-ordinary and unusual. What is normal or the rule need not be justified; it simply is. The rule that is broken, the abnormal, must be justified.
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