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This conclusion is unwarranted. Make shift military resistance against overwhelmingly, superior forces has failed repeatedly. Does this "prove" that military defense will not work? No advocate of military defense would accept such an argument. Yet it is commonly assumed that any defeat for non-violence disproves the case for all non-violence. This is an error. There has been no real test of civilian based resistance. The debate should not be about whether non-violent resistance could have stopped Hitler, but about why there was a Hitler at all. Once an aggressor like Hitler comes to power with a large military force at his disposal, the situation is already lost. Neither violent nor non-violent resistance is guaranteed to succeed. The time to defeat him was before he came to power.
Now we should consider the effectiveness of non-violence as a matter of principle. This requires specifying what ends or objectives non-violence sets for itself. Principled non-violence will normally have more basic ends in addition to such shorter-range objectives as in non-violence considered merely as a tactic. Robert L. Holmes says, for example, one of the ends of nonviolence is always to show respect for one's opponent in conflict situation. One may succeed in doing this independently of whether one succeed in achieving whatever the social or political objective one may have. Or if one of its aims is not to add to the amount of violence in the world, that too is achievable apart from success or failure at accomplishing other ends.
If one thinks of non-violence as a way of life, then it works to the extent that one lives non-violently and infuses everyday conduct with a non-violent spirit. If we act non-violently, considerately, and respectfully; non-violence in this sense cannot fail to work if we resolve to see that it works. Non-violence not only works but it works better than violence.
Few (Sorel) advocate violence as a tactic but they never advocate violence as a mater of principle or as a way of life. They advocate it only as a last resort, in circumstances in which they believe nothing else will achieve their objectives and even then only when those objectives are unusually important.
Two common myths arises directly from the inability to conceptualize non-violence as an active force (tactic) in its own right—
(a) Non-violence is passive; it is offered best by the meek,
तुलसी प्रज्ञा जुलाई-सितम्बर, 2008
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