Science and Nonviolence
It is an exciting time to be alive! A time in which scientific evidence and research is validating what wisdom traditions have been telling us for thousands of years: that everything is connected and there is a lot more to life than the seemingly solid, material world that meets the eye; there is a lot more to the human being than this body of ours.
The science that prevailed in the West from the industrial revolution to early modern times, until, say, the incredible discoveries of quantum theory at the beginning of the last century—it’s sometimes called now “classical science”—was not friendly to the idea of a Gandhian nonviolence, aka “soul force” that can “move the heart” of the opponent.
Along with the materialistic, mechanistic worldview of classical science went a competitive view of evolution (wrongly attributed to Darwin) that was human life. This resulted, for example, in a cheap doctrine called “innate aggression” that viewers of modern television took for granted—until it was debunked by the Declaration of Seville (at least for those who read the latter. Also known as the Seville Statement on Violence, the declaration was developed in a meeting of international scientists convened by UNESCO in 1986. These scientists discussed the myths associated with innate aggression in humans, concluding that it was “scientifically incorrect” to say that there is a hereditary, genetic, or evolutionary basis for war, violence, and aggression in humans).
A commonly posed objection to nonviolence was, and unfortunately still is in many quarters, “Aren’t humans naturally violent?” If this were true, it would seem that there would be little point in trying to work for peace and harmony. But along with the seismic shift to an understanding that the universe is “more like an idea than a thing” came several realizations that scientists can now demonstrate with the rigor for which they are justly famous:
Yes, violence is found in nature, but so is nonviolence (in the forms of conflict de-escalation, peacemaking, etc.). Biologists find cooperation throughout nature, and animal behavior is now found to include peacemaking: if it did not, we would have perished after the first fight broke out! The latter is vastly more prevalent than anyone guessed, has played if anything a much more important role in evolution than its opposite (more cooperation than competition) and, above all, seems to have been steadily increasing.
Higher animals are endowed with “mirror neurons” that exactly reflect the moods, actions, and intentions of others.
We are body, mind, and spirit. As spirit, we are deeply interconnected. We are, to borrow from Martin Luther King Jr., “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”
Compassion, empathy, and like states give us a sense of meaning that is as vital to our existence as the necessities of food, clothing, and shelter.
Let’s get a flavor of “positive science” with two examples.
First, a study of rhesus monkeys by the leading scientist in this field, Frans de Waal, in his fascinating book, Good Natured: the Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996, p. 178):
De Waal and his colleagues put a group of stumptail monkeys in with a colony of their macaque cousins, the notoriously aggressive rhesus. Stumptails are calmer and more cooperative, so the scientists wanted to see how long they would last with the aggressive rhesus. Imagine their surprise when the stumptails not only stood their ground, refusing to yield or to fight back, but the rhesus began to adopt stumptail behavior! More surprising still, when the stumptails were taken out of the colony, scientists expected the rhesus monkeys to revert to their bad behavior, but they did not—the rhesus’ culture had actually changed, and they retained the culture of the stumptails. This example illustrates that deep in our evolutionary inheritance, there are powerful tendencies towards nonviolence that can shift cultures. Even cultures that can seem deeply entrenched in widespread aggression and violence can change.
Second example:
It is known that if one sees a picture of a face from a different race than our own, a deep reaction occurs in the limbic system of the brain correlated with the “flight or fight” reaction. Primitive stuff. Very discouraging. But two researchers at Princeton, Mary Wheeler and Susan Fiske, had the bright idea to “prime” their subjects with a simple question: “Does the person you’re about to see like coffee or tea?” The limbic system reaction was virtually suppressed. Rehumanization, anyone? (See their article, “Controlling Racial Prejudice. Social-Cognitive Goals Affect Amygdala and Stereotype Activation,” in Psychological Science, Vol 16, Issue 1, pp. 56-63).
Once again, Gandhi is a towering figure in all of this, because with his Vedantic worldview there is no difference between scientific and spiritual reality. What we came to consider science in the West was the science of the outside world; the wisdom tradition deals with the science of the world within. In other words, nonviolence IS a science, something that can be tested and verified. Gandhi called his autobiography My Experiments With Truth, and he treated his application of nonviolence as a scientific experiment. He was always aware that he himself was the instrument of experimentation, as quantum theorists were also discovering. The level of purity of the instrument—himself—would determine the results. Throughout his life, Gandhi experimented in all ways, from the way he ate and slept to the strategies he employed at the political level, always remaining open to learning more.
Practice:
Approach nonviolence as a science. Look for areas where you can experiment (you may want to draw from previous practices, such as person power), and make observations prior to and following the experiment. Pay careful attention to the instrument —yourself! How can you purify this instrument to be the most effective vehicle for nonviolence?
Additional resources: