Ghandi: What a Lunatic

[Johnny Couth]

What would you think if you heard a guy at work saying these things:

"The Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs."

"I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions.... If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourselves, man, woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them".

[Emu]

Those are taken entirely out of context and are meant to endorse satiyagraha, not anti-semitism, you fucking twit.

[mburbank]

While those are alarming speciffics, especially when taken out of context, it's what extreme paciffism teaches, and it's no different than what Jesus said.

When they wanted to flog him, he let them. When they wanted to kill him, he let them. He didn't say 'Turn the other cheek unless they hit you really hard.'

Most people would find what Ghandi or Jesus asked of them completely nuts if they really looked at it. I concider myself way out on the curve of paciffism, and I couldn't do what they ask.

What's your point? That by actually putting the practice into real world, concrete terms tat included the mention of actual races and people that makes it more nuts?

It's not like he said

"The Jews should welcome the butcher knives, but not Indians. I just realy hate Jews."

If you want to talk about him being a nutcase, go with the diaper and the not eating.

[Johnny Couth]

I'm not saying he's targeting the Jews, I am just asking what chance the Jews would of had, or England would of had, if they did what Ghandi suggested.

[Royal Tenenbaum]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghandi#Criticism

A lot of this is covered in their. Ghandi simply believed that Jews should martyr themselves, which is indeed crazy.

[ziggytrix]

Not if you truly believe that God punishes killing in the next life. Unless you think that is madness, too.

[Johnny Couth]

That's true, this stuff only seems sane if you really believe in an after life.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Originally Posted by ziggytrix

Not if you truly believe that God punishes killing in the next life. Unless you think that is madness, too.

You clearly haven't read, well, everything Royal has ever posted here.

[mburbank]

I'm pretty sure Ghandi wasn't about what chance you have.

If you are an raical pacifficst, killing is wrong, period. Violence is wrong, period. It's a very stearn set of principles.

And what he believed about reincarnation or afterlife is immaterial. You're still looking at this from a western "What are the rewards" perspective. So do I, I'm just saying it's a silly angle to Judge Ghandi from.

You don't let someone kill you because you'll get rewarded for it in the next life. You let someone kill you because that is what they are set on doing. You can't control their actions, but you can control yours. If it would take violence to stop them, you don't stop them. We are all going to die. That's beyond our control. But the actions we take while we are alive are not.

Sure Ghandi wanted rights and freedom for Indians. Sure he thought non violence would achieve it, and it turns out he was right. But it's not like Pacifism is a technique where you say "Well, we'll give non violence a shot, and if we don't win, we'll start using guns." And it's also not "I won't hurt anybody ever because if I don't I get a pony in the next life."

[ziggytrix]

Originally Posted by KevinTheOmnivore

You clearly haven't read, well, everything Royal has ever posted here.

I don't think he's ever called religion madness. I was under the impression he just thought it was foolishness.


And Max, I really couldn't possibly condone that level of pacifism without a belief in a higher power, because without divine justice, man has to provide justice, or there is no justice.

It's not about rewards, it's about a blind chick who needs her boob covered.

[mburbank]

I'm not sure I condone it either. I'm just trying to remove the western gloss a little.

And there is a belief in a 'higher power' inherent. It's just that being motivated by goodies a higher power might bestow is beside the point. I think a lot of Christians get that wrong, too. I have to be good so I go to heaven and not hell. I think the idea is to be good because it's what God wants of you, it makes life on earth better by one persons worth, and it's what you can do. offers of heavenly ponies and threats of hellish proddings and burnings strike me as a very childish spirituality.

I'm not sure how justice figures into the idea, beyond the hope that one will ultimately influence the other. There's a famous bhuddist story about an assasin who is paid to come and kill Bhudda. Big B is so unmoved by his mortal danger and so willing to let the assasin kill him if that's what he feels he has to do, the assasin becomes enlightened.

I don't know if anything like that would ever happen to a single thug or soldier, and it's guaranteed there would be a whole lot of dying first.

I don't mind folks thinking radical pacifism is nutso. I pretty much think so to. But violence and the team version, war, are prettty much accepted as unpleasant but unavoidable aspects of life, and they're pretty fucking nuts too. I think people like Jesus and Ghandi were trying to see if their might be any other way for people to relate to each other. Radical pacifism requires some seriously huge stones. I know I don't have them that big.

[adept_ninja]

Ghandi was crazy though he hated black people and was very found of enimas.

[kahljorn]

"I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity"

This pretty much sums up what everyone was saying to you, you uncouth asshole.
Last I heard you couldn't save humanity by shooting people because it just causes more hatred and/in violence. I can't think of anytime that, after we shoot someone, everybody laid down their weapons and said, "Welp, that solved this problem, no more need for violence!"

Hence the pacifist route of stopping violence in it's tracks by not commiting any violence, based on the belief that violence causes/perpetuates violence. It's kind of like going, "Cold turkey" if you get my drift.

[Emu]

By the way, guys, it's GandHi, not GHandi.

[mburbank]

Oh, crap, I thought we were talking about DONDI, which was a newspaper strip about an Italian orphan adopted by US soldiers during WWII.

[Johnny Couth]

Originally Posted by kahljorn

"I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity"

This pretty much sums up what everyone was saying to you, you uncouth asshole.
Last I heard you couldn't save humanity by shooting people because it just causes more hatred and/in violence. I can't think of anytime that, after we shoot someone, everybody laid down their weapons and said, "Welp, that solved this problem, no more need for violence!"

Hence the pacifist route of stopping violence in it's tracks by not commiting any violence, based on the belief that violence causes/perpetuates violence. It's kind of like going, "Cold turkey" if you get my drift.

Yeah, but if countries weren't willing to defend themselves against countries that wanted to take them over, and if people like the jews were willing to let people like the nazis just kill them, then we'd just have one group of morally corrupt bullying the rest of the world that won't stick up for itself.

An eye for an eye may make the world blind, but letting someone run around ripping peoples eyes out without consequence is just not the responsible thing to do.

[kahljorn]

"if people like the jews were willing to let people like the nazis just kill them, then we'd just have one group of morally corrupt bullying the rest of the world that won't stick up for itself. "

What a winning observation, for some reason I don't think this epiphany is unique to you, but I'll get back to you after I do some intense research on the subject. Because honestly, I just don't know.

I felt I should add the fact that when you're acting like a pacifist pussy who's being 'bullied' more countries are likely to come to your aid and there is more political/diplomatic strain placed on the bulliers than if the country was fighting back(this is even generally true for citizens within Bullytown). True story.

[homoperfect]

With the knowledge of Gandhi's beliefs I am able to understand why he might say something such as this. Alone these phrases might seem psychotic and anti-semetic but as a whole they agree with his passive resistance. Gandhi did not believe in using violence to subdue an enemy. He believed in the compassion of the human being. Through much innocent pain and suffering the enemy will come to realize there faults and rectify them. As humans we tend to be our worst judge. Gandhi also believed that peace was not possible through Violent means.