On the Meaning of Nonviolence

Abstract

Two different ways of studying nonviolence are distinguished, depending on whether one uses explicit or implicit definitions of nonviolence used by others, whether writers on the subject or people who say they have practiced nonviolence, or one tries to develop one's own definition. The second approach is followed in this article in order to avoid ritualistic repetition of what others have regarded as nonviolence. Nonviolence is seen as an effort to influence, and a typology of influence techniques is developed, based on a simple model of how human actions are decided upon. This typology has as its main axis a distinction between positive and negative techniques of influence, i.e. the distinction between techniques that facilitate the execution of positive actions and techniques that impede the execution of negative actions. Nonviolence is then defined in a negative and a positive sense: negative nonviolence would include all possible techniques of influence short of 'deprivation of biological health' (called violence in the narrow sense) and positive nonviolence would exclude all negative techniques of influence (called violence in the broad sense). Current forms of nonviolent resistance or intervention are then examined in this perspective, and five main types are distinguished: a symbolic form that aims at pointing out to the adversary what are positive and what are negative actions; the use of physical means such as nonviolent sabotage, emigration, escape and their positive counterpart: close social contact; the use of positive and negative sanctions; the use of positive and negative 'amplification' (a way of increasing the impact the adversary's actions have, whether they are good or bad) and role-playing which includes such techniques as non cooperation and civil disobedience. In the final evaluation it is pointed out that adherents of nonviolence should do more to develop positive techniques of influence, and that many of the negative techniques differ little from biological violence.