My Brief Critique on Ahimsa (i.e. non-violence and non-resistance) · Philosophy Forum

inimalist Junior Member

Originally posted by elfirrepins
I believe the reason why we view things as such is because of our genes. We try not to follow what ends up following us. Violence is an automatic trigger because it is in our genes. And it all starts at the beginning when we were all a part of the circle of life that is survival.
We had to teach ourselves to be violent so that we could live. Throughout time though, we have evolved our intelligence as such that we could take out a planet with a simple press of a button. In the end, we took the circle of life for granted, and it had changed our perspective of life itself.
When we took survival for granted, we took violence for granted. Hence the reason people believe in growth.

violence is as much a part of our genes as is altruism

Mindship Snap out of it.

Originally posted by inimalist
They didn't fight back, true, but they went out with the intention of provoking a violent reaction.

Perhaps 'passive aggressive' would be better? It doesn't have the same noble ring, though.

King Kandy Senior Member

Originally posted by inimalist
Its more that I think there is a difference between tactics that promote non-violent protest (such as those in Egypt, where they weren't trying to shame the regime into collapse) vs Ghandi, who explicity set out to have violence done to him.
but tbh, depending on how we define violence, resistance at its core may be violent in nature

Anyone who goes out and protests when he knows the police will react violently is promoting a violent reaction... The nonviolence of ghandi was to simply go do things against the will of the police and let what comes comes... if Egyptian protesters had gone to make salt instead, the result would have been the same regardless of intent.