Gandhi's Experiment (Updated 2/01)

Mohandas Gandhi played a pivotal role in freeing India from British colonial domination. His technique was revolutionary amongst revolutions. He eschewed all violence, but said that the power of love or "soul force" was more powerful and more effective. Then he set out to prove his point with regard to India's independence, with a campaign basically composed of positive propaganda (i.e. education as to his philosophy) and non-cooperation, peppered with organized acts of calculated defiance that were dramatized by the refusal of the participants to react violently, even when beaten or killed.

In terms of evolutionary pattern theory (a tautology: those patterns which are best able to survive and propogate (provive)... survive and propogate, although they also evolve in the process), Gandhi's approach was to introduce the virus of tolerance, a subpattern which is meant to allow patterns to coexist side by side. Recall that there are at least four ways in which patterns may interact affecting their provival: competitively (weakening or destroying each other to increase energy inputs), parasitically (one draws strength from the other, at the other's expense, or weakening of the inertia of the pattern), symbiotically/cooperatively (each draws strength from the other), or separately (side by side coexistence with little significant interaction). Most interactions among significantly interacting patterns employ a combination of approaches, weighting each differently and accomplishing each aspect in a variety of ways.

Tolerance, in Gandhi's sense, is one such technique, which takes very seriously the balancing of these interactions. It basically says, let us look carefully at our patterns. Historically, we have been afraid of each other, and when we have acted upon our fears, it has given us more cause for fear as we look back at our history. But really, our patterns are not different and need not be competitive or mutually destructive to provive. But we must alter our patterns only enough to realize this, and to mutually act upon that information.

Love is another such technique; it recognizes that there is strength and security in not just learning to live side by side, separately, but in strengthening each other and making each other more secure: patterns reinforcing each other. This requires mutuality and a buildup of trust in the long run for effective provival, because otherwise fear and betrayal can also result in patterns of culture going at it with each other once again.

Active love (aka satyagraha, or soul force) takes this one step further. It demands respect at the least, and strives for actual cooperation and mutual love. There is self-love as well as love for the other, a security that the instinctive weapon of violence is not really needed, because the tools of love are available in the here and now.

Non-cooperation is another tool of satyagraha. Think about it. No tyranny has any more power than its ability to command at least the actions of its subjects. If the vast majority of the people refuse to cooperate in tyranny, the tyrant is helpless. Perhaps part of the tyrant's power comes from commanding many soldiers, whom he can pay from some vast resource of wealth. Still, if a brave populace is willing to face death rather than follow the dictates of a pointed gun, this power will self-destruct, just as surely as if the world's last remaining superpower stepped in with all of its military might, probably much more so. For the threats of the tyrant, even if carried out, are futile.

So I imagine the message of Gandhi's famous Salt March thusly: "We will show you how we demand respect and offer our love. We will break your unjust law by making our own salt from the sea in defiance of the British monopoly. You cannot disrespect our right to do so, for we will not cooperate in your disrespectful restrictions of our rights. You can beat us, but we will not hit you back, because you are human, and we love all of humanity. But you're beating us will humiliate you in front of the world while also teaching you that it is a waste of your time and energy to try to hold us subject to your will."

This is a pattern that can survive the world, and spread itself, without altering the positive patterns/values that are most fundamental to our existences. But it cannot do so if it emanates primarily from a single, charismatic individual, who can be killed, as were Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., and will surely die one day in any case. It must be learned, pondered, practiced, and incorporated into the hearts of, if not all of us, as many of us as possible, and certainly not by force, but by the sincere reaching out and internal struggle of the individual inspired by teaching and debate that has the ring of truth about it. If one Martin Luther King can do so much to bring about civil rights reform, and one Gandhi can do so much to free a nation, think a few million Gandhis and Kings could do.

Satyagraha,

The Raving Moderate

To the memory of Coretta Scott King.

Alito and the Presidential Signing Statement,

Sent this email to some Congresspeople through Working Assets:

The "Presidential Signing Statement", which Alito apparently recommended, Reagan first seized upon, and Bush uses with some abandon, is an indication of where Alito's nomination is coming from and how he will behave if allowed to sit on the Supreme Court. The Executive is not supposed to replace the Legislature anymore than the Judiciary is, yet this is what Bush tries to do with these statements: sign into law a modified version of Congress' intent. These statements should have no binding authority; they have perhaps been tolerated because they were just a footnote, an expression of Presidential vanity of little consequence. Bush doesn't operate that way; he tries to monopolize power to the greatest degree possible. And Alito will back him up on this when Bush actually tries to hide behind his own interpretations, in the form of signing statements, of legislation that would otherwise curb his authority, like the ban on torture.

Please support John Kerry's filibuster of this nomination. When you put the nomination together with things like outsourced, fraudulent elections and going to war on false pretexts that lead to the multi-billion dollar profit of crony corporations, it is clearly a step on the road away from democracy and towards dictatorship. Extraordinary circumstances indeed.

Click here for an NPR broadcast on the subject. of Presidential signing statements. A somewhat more probing looking is provided in this article by John Dean. My suspicion is that the signing statement is extra-constitutional, and that it's legal effect should be nil, if challenged in a responsible Supreme Court. But an irresponsible Supreme Court could allow the President to usurp legislative responsibilities, essentially giving him a line item veto, which already has been ruled unconstitutional: the President may sign or reject the bill given to him, not write his own version of it, as far as I can tell so far. However, I have believed all along that it is Bush' desire to erode the separation of powers. One way to do that is to place his "yes" men (and women) on the Supreme Court. Another is to get those members of the Supreme Court to vote him legislative powers, gradually moving the Presidency toward the vision of a "Unitary President", who ultimately becomes, to quote one word from a supposed wisecrack of Bush's, a "dictator". So, if the so-called "signing statement" is ever challenged, Alito may be just the person that Bush needs to tip the court to grant it the power to override Congressional authority.

Censorship on China's Internet

Nice article in the BBC here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/4587622.stm

They've even kindly thrown in some URLs to what they call "SOME PUBLIC WEB-BASED CIRCUMVENTION SERVICES" for surfing without being identified. It's too bad some people are forced to hide in order to explore the universe of ideas, but let me reprint those services here (I have not tried them so I can't vouch):
www.peacefire.org
www.anonymizer.com
www.unipeak.com
www.anonymouse.org
www.proxyweb.net
www.guardster.com
www.webwarper.net
www.the-cloak.com

Review and Discuss

My posts will be infrequent for the next couple of months, since I'm supposed to be studying for the bar exam. Very difficult to concentrate on though; while the law as it relates to human reality is a fascinating subject, I'm still too busy trying to understand human reality on more of a meta-level. Hence the theory of patterns. By the way, it only just crossed my mind that there may be (and a quick Google confirms it) an existing "Pattern Theory" which is under academic discussion. I suspect my "pattern theory" has something to do with, but mine is more of an evolution from studying evolution at the grade school level, and from considering problems of social disruptions at the political level in college.

Let's review. Pattern theory basically restates the primary theory of evolution as a tautology: those patterns of existence which tend to survive and propagate... tend to survive and propagate. Duh. If there are slight changes to the pattern which further enhance survival and propagation, then, duh, that pattern's survival and propagation are further enhanced. And so existence evolves. For our purposes here, you are nevertheless welcome to debate whether humans come from apes. The specific outcome is not a tautology, at least not without additional evidence, only the general rule. In fact the general rule in no way precludes a divine hand helping out in the "evolution" of things or even more or less creating people out of whole cloth or, in Eve's case, spare ribs (this pun is from Richard Armour's cute book of historical satire, "It All Started With Columbus").

Since it is based on a tautology, pattern theory should not be considered earth-shattering in and of itself. What it does do, is provide an interesting lens to look through in considering existence and other theories of existence. Take for example economics. Economics may be seen as patterns of behavior in which individual and groups of humans (individuals as patterns within patterns of groups) attempt to ensure their own survival, their own ability to thrive, and to propagate, both in the forms of children who are then to be successfully raised, and in the forms of groups similar to the one(s) the individuals currently belong to. Economic patterns may take such forms as cooperation, competition, or exploitation among individuals and groups, all of whom are struggling to survive and propagate their patterns of existence, including their genome, lifestyles, beliefs, ways of thinking etc. They... we... act this way not necessarily because of some higher calling (we may get to that question later), but simply because patterns that act in the interests of survival and propagation are the tautological outcome of evolution in an existence where "existence", "continued existence" and "patterns" can be descriptive terms.

Pattern theory can also be applied to questions of war and peace, which I have indirectly discussed previously. The application is actually very similar to the economic one; people as patterns trying to provive (survive and propagate) in the presence of conflicting people (patterns) may try to terminate those patterns, cause them to become cooperative (harmonious) patterns, or exterminate the conflicting patterns altogether.

Still, evolution is not complete, and our mechanisms of provival are still imperfect. So there is much to discuss.