Sharp's 198 methods do work tolerably often without the way being prepared by the international relations, financial and other external ruling class communities. But covert CIA/NED violence seems to complement successful pro-neoliberal non-violent movements, a trick they must have learned from the Civil Rights movement.
Hopping from org to org is a very interesting idea, one that anarchists and their pop-up committees for particular actions seem to apply to their benefit. But it seems a bit too easy to get entrapped by stepping into the wrong movement with the wrong tactic at the wrong time. I'll have to think about that one a bit more.
There's always debate about whether biography should matter when it comes to intellectual or artistic achievement. Heidegger and his involvement with the Nazi Party is probably the best example; he may have been the most influential philosopher of the 20th Century, but because of his Nazi affiliation, I’m not even sure if he is still taught in philosophy classes. (Of course, had Heidegger been an equally good rocket scientist, he would have become an American hero.) Sharp’s long-term affiliation with the CIA and his integral participation in the creation of neoliberalism, however, demand that his motivations and “achievements” must be questioned.
Your link is excellent—I’ve bookmarked NonSite.org—and the article seems pretty damning. Logically and historically, it does make sense that the best way to control political resistance is to create and manage it. I’m always especially skeptical about non-violence movements that arise within empires. There is an increasing amount of evidence that Christianity was a Roman invention to quell the Zealot rebellion and, essentially, create antisemitism to manage it. Why else would a Messiah, who every Jew assumed would be an archetypal rebel-warrior leader, arise during an actual and successful rebellion preaching non-violence and “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s”? Later Roman rulers then realized the value of using monotheism to control the masses, and imperial intellectual loyalists wrote the Gospels. (See, for example, Joseph Atwill’s book, Caesar’s Messiah.) I would not be surprised if similar claims are made against Gandhi.
You're quite welcome, and thank you for pointing me in the direction of Atwill. How interesting to suspect that Jesus and Gandhi were intentionally fashioned products of an imperial administrative class. Allow me to add another Doe to the indictment.
A college psych 101 book I perused as a child presented Kohlberg's theory of moral development, and illustrated the sixth of six stages, the late post-conventional stage, as a status definitively achieved by only three idealized exemplars. Jesus and Gandhi were the first two on the list, and MLKJr completed the set. Such a selection leads one to a lot of pointed questions about the natures of morality, autonomy, and recuperation by distinction. We know that Gandhi's and MLKJr's use of violence was downplayed in the popular mythos, and it seems not unreasonable to imagine that Jesus might have, in fact, engaged in the same sort of direct action and been posthumously subjected to the same sort of mythological laundering as we have witnessed with the other two.
That's a lot of mind blowing for a Tuesday morning. Thanks again.
The third. Here's a little bit on Gene Sharp:
https://nonsite.org/change-agent-gene-sharps-neoliberal-nonviolence-part-one/
Sharp's 198 methods do work tolerably often without the way being prepared by the international relations, financial and other external ruling class communities. But covert CIA/NED violence seems to complement successful pro-neoliberal non-violent movements, a trick they must have learned from the Civil Rights movement.
Hopping from org to org is a very interesting idea, one that anarchists and their pop-up committees for particular actions seem to apply to their benefit. But it seems a bit too easy to get entrapped by stepping into the wrong movement with the wrong tactic at the wrong time. I'll have to think about that one a bit more.
There's always debate about whether biography should matter when it comes to intellectual or artistic achievement. Heidegger and his involvement with the Nazi Party is probably the best example; he may have been the most influential philosopher of the 20th Century, but because of his Nazi affiliation, I’m not even sure if he is still taught in philosophy classes. (Of course, had Heidegger been an equally good rocket scientist, he would have become an American hero.) Sharp’s long-term affiliation with the CIA and his integral participation in the creation of neoliberalism, however, demand that his motivations and “achievements” must be questioned.
Your link is excellent—I’ve bookmarked NonSite.org—and the article seems pretty damning. Logically and historically, it does make sense that the best way to control political resistance is to create and manage it. I’m always especially skeptical about non-violence movements that arise within empires. There is an increasing amount of evidence that Christianity was a Roman invention to quell the Zealot rebellion and, essentially, create antisemitism to manage it. Why else would a Messiah, who every Jew assumed would be an archetypal rebel-warrior leader, arise during an actual and successful rebellion preaching non-violence and “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s”? Later Roman rulers then realized the value of using monotheism to control the masses, and imperial intellectual loyalists wrote the Gospels. (See, for example, Joseph Atwill’s book, Caesar’s Messiah.) I would not be surprised if similar claims are made against Gandhi.
So, point taken. Thanks.
You're quite welcome, and thank you for pointing me in the direction of Atwill. How interesting to suspect that Jesus and Gandhi were intentionally fashioned products of an imperial administrative class. Allow me to add another Doe to the indictment.
A college psych 101 book I perused as a child presented Kohlberg's theory of moral development, and illustrated the sixth of six stages, the late post-conventional stage, as a status definitively achieved by only three idealized exemplars. Jesus and Gandhi were the first two on the list, and MLKJr completed the set. Such a selection leads one to a lot of pointed questions about the natures of morality, autonomy, and recuperation by distinction. We know that Gandhi's and MLKJr's use of violence was downplayed in the popular mythos, and it seems not unreasonable to imagine that Jesus might have, in fact, engaged in the same sort of direct action and been posthumously subjected to the same sort of mythological laundering as we have witnessed with the other two.
That's a lot of mind blowing for a Tuesday morning. Thanks again.