Sociology 410/510: Nonviolent Social Change

Spring 2005 CRN: 38120

Professor Michael Dreiling

Meets:  MW 10:00-11:20    In:  248 GER

Phone: 346-5025;   Email: dreiling@uoregon.edu

Office Hours in 740 PLC:  M W 11:30-12:00; TU 10-11

 

Course Vision

 

“The means may be likened to a seed, the end to a tree; and there is just the same inviolable connection between the means and the end as there is between the seed and the tree.”   - Mahatma Gandhi

 

Violence permeates the social and psychological fabric of modern human civilization. Whether perpetrated against another human being, entire populations, other life forms, or oneself, violence touches human lives, leaving a deep imprint of fear and pain throughout the social fabric. Many large-scale power structures in our society – and relations between individuals - are anchored in this fear, reproducing a social and psychological order using fear-based modes of obedience and mental masquerades. All of the “-isms” of our society are the result. Furthermore, many attempts to change the society toward less violent alternatives are also deeply imbued with violence and the dominator languages that characterize the larger social order.

 

Yet, many communities thrive on and cultivate an intention to heal the wounds of violence – in us and in the world. These communities – some social movements, religious groups, communes, nonprofits, individuals and even public agencies – constantly rediscover the principles and practices of nonviolence as they heal personal and social wounds on the long journey to create justice. It is in the activity of these communities that we find the source of nonviolent social change – the antidote to violence. To quote a leader of nonviolence in the U.S. labor movement, “Only the nonviolent can apply therapy to the violent.”          (A.J. Muste).

 

 

We will unearth the principles of nonviolence, the history of nonviolent social movements and how the tools created out of nonviolent change may presently be applied to personal and social change efforts. I take seriously the claims of leaders like Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Jr.and Thich Nhat Hanh: that nonviolence is not a means to an end, but a way of being and living. Gandhi declared that we “be the change we wish to see in the world.” Buddhist author and activist Thich Nhat Hanh invited further reflection: “If we divide reality into two camps – the violent and the nonviolent – and stand in one camp while attacking the other, the world will never have peace. We will always blame and condemn those we feel are responsible for wars and social injustice, without recognizing the degree of violence in ourselves.” What does it mean to begin to clear violence from our own hearts and minds? We will explore this question with practical applications from Nonviolent Communication. 

 

 

ViolareLatin. v. to bear in on with force; to injure, dishonor, outrage.

- Johan Galtung – “violence is avoidable insult to human needs.” 

                                                       

AhimsaSanskrit. The absence of desire or intention to harm; compassion, or nonviolence.

 

“We have a power, power that cannot be found in Molotov cocktails, but we do have a power. Power that cannot be found in bullets and guns, but we have a power. It is a power as old as the insights of Jesus of Nazareth and as modern as the techniques of Mahatma Gandhi.” 

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

 

 

Books and others readings:

q       Michael Nagler. 2001.  Is There no Other Way? The Search for a Nonviolent Future. 

q       Connecting Across Differences. Jane Connor and Dian Killian.

q       Zunes, Stephen, Lester Kurtz and Sarah Beth Asher. 1999. Nonviolent Social Movements: A Geographical Perspective.

q       Web-based reader at: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~dreiling/410online.html

q       RECOMMENDED FOR SOC 510:

o       Ackerman and Duvall. 2000. A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict.

o       Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition. Available at \Smith Family Bookstore.

 

Recommended Books on reserve:

Stride toward freedom; the Montgomery story, & Why We Can’t Wait. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Nonviolence in America. 

A Force more Powerful.

Love in Action: Writings on Nonviolent Social Change. Thich Nhat Hanh

The Nonviolent Alternative. Thomas Merton.

Pioneers for Peace: Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, 1915-1965.

Satyagraha. Mahatma Gandhi

 

Course Evaluation:

 

My intention is to help create an environment where each of us can share our views and expand our understanding of the self and society within the classroom and beyond. You will have numerous opportunities to learn about nonviolence and social change in this course. As you look through the course outline below, you will notice the major themes we will cover in the course materials. Beyond the main course themes, many tangents may arise that interest you. I invite you to explore these tangents (e.g., spirituality and nonviolent social change), and bring your learning to the rest of the class and as part of your grade. I encourage you to develop the course in this way, design projects or presentations, share, and incorporate these other areas of nonviolent social change into our group learning. Of course, these “optional” extravaganzas could contribute to your grade, if you choose to pursue them. Otherwise, you may want to stick to the main course readings and be graded on your engagement with that material. Either way, I encourage you to carve out sections of this course material and pursue it. As a class, we will maintain a common ground in the main course readings and attendance at our meetings will help us toward that end.

 

My request for evaluating (and grading) your involvement in this course is based on my needs for fairness, clarity and integrity. I would like each of you to find a way to show me that you are engaging the course material in a way you most enjoy. I will spend some time unpacking this request in our first few class meetings, but I am guessing some of you will want to demonstrate your engagement with the material with standard tests and papers. Below you will find my standard proposal for evaluating how each of your engagement with this course. 

q       Three Quizzes: 20% each -       60%

q       One Final Synthesis Paper:        20%

q       Attendance:                              20%

q       TOTAL:                                   100%

 

If you find that the above proposal does not meet your learning needs for this class and would like your grade to reflect some other course-related work, you may pursue an alternative method of evaluation. I will pass out a course “rubric” to provide a sense of the various learning options in this course. You may then imagine ways that your own learning motifs intersect with this course material and how you will cover each major segment of the course. From there, I want to see a one-page proposal from you indicating how you will show me that you are engaging this course material. I will also request feedback throughout the term on your progress with the project, hoping to better understand what you are learning. The following guidelines may help you develop a project outline that “shows me you are engaging the course material.” 1) Imagine how you enjoy sharing the things that you learn and imagine how that would look in relation to this course material; 2) describe what you will do to convey to me that you are engaging the course material; 3) explain how your proposed project(s) will show me that you engaged each major segment of the course material, providing a rough breakdown of what percentages of your total grade you want the project(s) to weigh on your final grade; 4) provide a brief explanation of what needs of yours are likely to be met by doing the work as you propose (e.g., I imagine my needs for play, learning and sharing will be met by applying my talents to the development of a website on Nonviolent Social Change, with sections including personal reflections and poetry). We will spend more time discussing this.

 

Course Outline:

Moral autonomy appears when the mind regards as necessary an ideal that is independent of all external pressure.” Jean Piaget.

 

I) How then shall we live?   (Tolstoy)                            WEEK 1

Ø      By Any Means Necessary?

Ø      The Sociology of Consequence

READ

Nagler, Introduction and Chs.1-3

 

II) What do we mean by violence and nonviolence?

Ø      Violence…

Ø      Nonviolence as…

§         tactic

§         principle

§         communication

§         consciousness

§         way of life

Ø      Grey areas?

Ø      Discernment.

Ø      Assessing our Situation

Film

III) The Origins and Development of Nonviolence in the USA

WEEK 2

READ

Zunes, Kurtz, Asher: Introduction & Chs. 14

Weblinks for Week #2

Brief history of U.S. Movements – Sit-down strikes, lunch counter sit-ins, tree-sits, marches

Ø      Quaker and Christian Pacifism

Ø      Abolitionists and Nonviolence in African American history – Pacifism and the question of force vs. persuasion

Ø      Nonviolence in Women’s March to Equality

Ø      In Environmentalism (Thoreau)

Ø      Anarchism and Progressives in the Antiwar Movement

Ø      In the Labor Movement: A.J Muste, CIO Sit-down Strikes

Ø      From Tolstoy and Thoreau (and others) to Gandhi, and back.

Ø      Civil Rights Movement

 

IV) The Social Psychological Foundations of Violence and Nonviolence

WEEKS 3-5

READ:

Connor and Killian, Chs. 1-6

Zunes, Kurtz, Asher: CHAPTER 1

Ø      Nonviolent Communication

Ø      The universality of human needs, the infinite variety of means/ strategies to meet human needs

Ø      Forms of Social Power: Strategies that employ coercive use of force and violence

Ø      And forms of Integrative Power, or power with…

Ø      Limits of Structural Models of Change: Where then, is the human heart with its wounds and dreams?

 

READ:

Connor and Killian, Chs. 7-12

Ø      Clearing Violence from the self

Ø      Blame culture.

Ø      Inner Violence

Ø      QUIZ #2

 

"The only devils in the world are those running around in our own hearts. That is where the battle must be fought." --Mahatma Gandhi

 

V) The Working of Nonviolence in Social Life               WEEKS 6-8

READ:

Nagler, Chs. 4 to Conclusion

Weblinks: Martin Luther King, Jr, selected excerpts of his Autobiography and Why We Can’t Wait, Gandhi, Chavez, etc.

Ø      Nonviolence as a Way of Life – Martin Luther King, Jr. and the US Civil Rights Movement

Ø      Politics and Nonviolent civil disobedience – Satyagraha, the power of nonviolence

 

VI) Globalizing Nonviolence                              WEEKS 8-10

READ:

Zunes, Kurtz, Asher: Chs. 2-13
Weblinks

QUIZ #3

                                                      

“My life is my message.” - Mahatma Gandhi.