Technology for nonviolent struggle

Acknowledgments

I thank all the individuals who offered insightful comments in interviews, seminars and correspondence, who for the most part must go unnamed. Robert Burrowes, Mary Cawte and Helen Gillett provided many useful suggestions on a first draft of the entire manuscript. Mary Cawte was an essential part of the project that led to this book. The project was supported by the Australian Research Council. Ellen Elster and Andreas Speck, members of the executive of War Resisters’ International, provided many insightful suggestions on the entire manuscript.

Wil Rikmanspoel offered expert advice on preparing the pdf version of the text.

Much of chapter 5 is adapted from “Communication technology and nonviolent action,” Media Development, Vol. 43, No. 2, 1996, pp. 3-9. Chapter 4 in part draws on “Science, technology and nonviolent action: the case for a utopian dimension in the social analysis of science and technology,” Social Studies of Science, Vol. 27, 1997, pp. 439-463. Chapter 7 is adapted from a portion of Helen Gillett, Brian Martin and Chris Rust, “Building in nonviolence: nonviolent struggle and the built environment,” Civilian-Based Defense, Vol. 11, No. 3, Fall 1996, pp. 1, 4-7.

Prologue. The vision of Aldous Huxley

In 1946, a remarkable essay by Aldous Huxley entitled Science, Liberty and Peace was published.[1] Huxley (1894-1963) is widely known as a novelist whose most famous work, Brave New World, was published in 1932. He was also a prolific and eloquent essayist in diverse fields. Science, Liberty and Peace is filled with insights about the connections between science, violence and nonviolence. Considering how far in advance of others Huxley was on this issue, it seems worthwhile examining how he arrived at his conclusions.

Huxley’s essay begins with the point — quoting Leo Tolstoy from around the turn of the century — that if power in society is mostly in the hands of a few people, then control over nature through science and technology will serve to increase power inequalities. Huxley points out that in the 1800s, armed liberation might have seemed a reasonable prospect: barricades and sporting rifles could be used to resist the government’s cavalry and cannon. But with the development of weapons of mass destruction, people’s weapons were no longer a match for the violence controlled by the state. Similarly, modern methods of mass persuasion — notably the press and the radio — become tools for oppressors because they allow the few to manipulate the many.

Mass production, the very foundation of industrial society, has aided this process, Huxley argues. Centralised production is favoured by both governments and big business, and they put every obstacle possible in the face of decentralised production. In each of these developments — weapons, media and industry — science and technology have played a crucial role. The main thrust of science and technology thus has served oppressors and hindered the expansion of peace and freedom.

Huxley’s analysis of society and science can be traced back to one guiding principle: that power is corrupting. Huxley refers to Lord Acton, whose views on power are best known through the aphorism “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”[2] If power is corrupting, then all technologies and social arrangements that allow or promote concentrations of power should be resisted. Huxley’s preferred path is decentralisation, which reduces the potential for abuse of power.

Huxley favours a society fundamentally different from the one that existed in 1946. But how should change occur, given that the overwhelming powers of violence and mass persuasion are held by what he calls the “ruling oligarchy”? Huxley believes that nonviolence is the only way forward. He sees hope in Gandhi’s methods, called satyagraha but more commonly referred to in the west today as nonviolent action, and refers to the resistance by the German people to the French and Belgian occupation of the Ruhr in 1923.

Huxley argues for nonviolence as the only hopeful possibility given the power that science and technology, via modern weapons, has placed in the hands of oppressors. Huxley’s support for nonviolence can be interpreted as an independent principle of action to supplement his analysis based on the corruptions of power. But support for nonviolence is a logical consequence of an overall analysis based on the idea that power is corrupting. Nonviolent action, as a method of struggle, allows widespread participation, gives any individual only limited power over others, and is most compatible with decentralised activity. Nonviolent action, then, is the method of struggle against oppression that is least subject to the corruptions of power.