Where do we go from here?
A reflection on No Kings 1 and 2 by Michael Nagler
THE TURNOUTS for the No Kings rallies have indeed been gratifying. I do not want to be a wet blanket, but students of history and advocates of social change will agree with me that we have been here before: think of the unprecedented numbers who turned out worldwide in protest against the impending Iraq war 𑁋 which happened anyway.
Protests show those in power that you do not like what they’re doing. The great weakness in this demonstration is that more often than not, and certainly in our case, those in power are past caring whether we like it. There can even be a perverse element 𑁋 which I strongly believe there is in this case 𑁋 that they’re glad you don’t like it. The lust for power revels in that very discomfort. Beyond our sad case, that of Israel vs. its worldwide condemnation is no different, but with the added element that after the Holocaust, Israelis’ lack of concern with how Europe and others think of them is, if not wise, at least understandable.
This is not to say we should not have protests. They form communities of support; they put those in power on notice that there are limits to what they can get away with; occasionally, as in the last phase of the war in Vietnam, they actually work. The main issue before us now is, OK, we’ve shown up, now what do we do?
Among the resources and models we’ve developed over the years at the Metta Center, one that provides a schematic for answering this question is the Escalation Curve. Conflicts escalate if or until they are addressed, and how to address them escalates accordingly. In the first phase, disagreement or dispute, the opposing party is open to persuasion. Failing that, the time has come for a kind of civil disobedience. Failing even that, which we sincerely hope does not happen, in extreme cases a nonviolent actor has risked or even sacrificed his or her life. Clearly, as mentioned, we want to succeed before that point!
In this scheme we are reaching the end of phase one. The president, or more accurately, his controllers, could care less that we have just demonstrated that we do not wish, thank you, to lose the democratic system for which our forefathers (and mothers) bled and died and which could, for all its flaws, be regarded as an inspiring experiment for humanity. Not for anyone, certainly not for such an unprepossessing and nationally disgraceful personality (don’t get me started) as Donald Trump.
And so, we advance to stage two: we will not let you do this. And here are some suggestions for putting teeth/reality to that bold position.
Daniel Chandler, at the beginning of his 2023 book, Free and Equal: What Would a Fair Society Look Like? writes, “there is no shortage of commentary about how and why we have reached this point. What is much harder to find is a coherent vision of what a better, fairer society would look like. . . .We have, in the words of the philosopher Roberto Unger been living under a ‘dictatorship of no alternatives.’”
Before we go much further 𑁋 and this is a great motivation to go further 𑁋 we must create a platform we can hold in common, setting forth not only the features of the world we want, like equality, but what that world would actually look like 𑁋 not that everyone has the same but they have the same access to meaning and civic participation 𑁋 and as far as possible how we’d get there. My favorite quote from historian Arnold Toynbee calls for, “an ideal, that takes the imagination by storm, and second, a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice.”
Do not imagine that we will be able to ‘turn this ship around’ without effort, even suffering. Here let’s remember MLK: “unearned suffering is redemptive.” So it may be, but let’s go slowly and carefully, to minimize it. At the same time: my mantra, don’t stop there. The tendency is to reform some of the most (obviously) obnoxious features of the present system, then get complacent. Which guarantees that they’ll be back. We need a deep analysis of not just the societal but the cultural factors that have brought us to this pass; what is the alternative, and how do we get there. If we really understand the effect of advertising, for example, on democratic decision-making, indeed on a humane vision of what fulfills us as human beings, we will see the dire need to raise a generation of young people who see through and do not patronize it.
These are big changes; there is no minimizing that. There is no minimizing the resistance we will run into. And that leads us to the overriding consideration that has to govern everything: nonviolence. Because nonviolence breaks up authoritarianism at its core.
And if we are to listen to the dictates of a King, let him be Martin.
