The Unconquerable World
Encyclopedia
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and The Will of the People is a book by Jonathan Schell
published in 2003.
Schell starts by discussing the cultural embeddedness of men, patriotism and death in battle (going back to the Athenian - Pericles
). From this classic root political morality has held onto the need for 'standing up for principles with force', which in practice quickly descends to "plunder, exploitation and massacre".
In the 5th century, St. Augustine
conjoined this with Christian love... by theorising 'separate realms' for political and religious morality. Politics has thus long been wedded to violence... it is hard to conceptualise a political ideology that does not have a resort to violence clause. As Schell says there has been, "an age old reliance of politics on violent means". (p. 4)
Schell then puts forward his main thesis that "violence has now become dysfunctional as a political instrument" (p. 7) and that "forms of non-violent action can serve effectively in the place of violence at every level of political affairs". (p. 8)
The key political progress has been the idea of democracy - even the worst democracy - carries within it the principle of equality which is a deeply seated contradiction to an also deeply embedded practice of inequality - see Tocqueville. Ironically modern national democracy allowed for a new kind of army, in which it was possible to mobilise masses of men prepared to die - apparently in defence of their own national interest and the principle of democracy. The disaster of the modern war system was fed by an unholy confluence of democracy, science, industrial revolution, and imperialism
which developed through the 19th century.
in which the public appearances of a strategic balance of power became more important than the reality of a balance of actual power. The A-bomb made a balance of actual power obsolete (p. 62).
also understood this need to endure. "Washington was always aware that his most important task was to insure the survival of his own forces - not strictly for military purposes but to personify the unconquerable will of the American people" (p. 157).
The big downside of people's war is that the whole people then become subject to retaliation (p. 81). In the Japanese retaliation against the Chinese communists, the population dropped from 45 million to 25 million. With this level of violence, political ideals are what buoys the resistance up. It also allowed humanitarian treatment of prisoners by the communist forces to be maintained.
In a people's war it is important that war is kept subordinate to politics. This is the first stage of extracting politics from the war machine. Politics here means the creation of a civil administration from the ground up. For Mao
the most important goal and foundation of this politics was the redistribution of land from rich to poor.
A militarised politics can easily segue into a totalitarian politics as it did in China
via conventional warfare
against the American backed Kuomintang
.
People's war became the principle instrument of self-determination and social change in the third world from around the 1950s. If a population is united, an imperial war against it is difficult to win. Charles de Gaulle
understood this in relation to Algeria
in 1958. Even when he had achieved a military victory it did not lead to a political one.
)
Only two expressly political theorists thought consistently about non-violence: Mahatma Gandhi and Hannah Arendt.
The assumption here is that tyrants and ruling classes alike only have the power that we invest in them. Give them nothing and they are naked and have no power. "The central role of consent in all government meant that non-cooperation - the withdrawal of consent - was something more than a morally satisfying activity; it was a powerful weapon in the real world." (p. 129) "Non-cooperation is not a passive state, it is an intensely active state - more active than physical resistance or violence."' (p. 130) Schell quoting from Gandhi's Essential Writings (p. 99)
The Gandhi programme of Satyagraha ("the quiet and irresistible pursuit of truth") was accompanied by 'the constructive programme'. This campaigned and organised to achieve concrete goals such as justice for workers, peace between factions, village hygiene and diet, the condition of women, etc. The idea is to do anything that obstructed the solidarity of the nation and that facilitates the production of a democratic political culture. "Constructive effort is political power" Gandhi's Essential Writings (p. 259)
The English 'Glorious Revolution' of 1689 "London was in fact the first of many modern capitals whose rebellious spirit was to infect and destroy the allegiance of an army of an ancien regime". This was William of Orange
versus King James
, with defections at the non-battle at Salisbury.
There has been a near universal failure of theorists to predict the non-violent fall of powers. He quotes Thomas Paine
: "Tis not in numbers but in unity that our great strength lies". In the American Revolution Committees of Correspondence were formed for "mutually fostering and co-ordinating activity". These were the basic political units.
Edmund Burke
realised that it is only by cultivating the love and admiration of the people that a ruler can raise taxes or an army or get voted in. This love "infuses into (army and navy) that liberal obedience without which your army would be base rabble and you navy nothing but rotten timber" (p. 159).
, Vaclav Havel
and Gyorgy Konrad
as sources to explain the 'unsuspected' weakness of the Soviet empire. In their beginnings they "did not aim at state power" (p. 191) but aimed at "achieving immediate changes in daily life" within what was called 'civil society' a term that goes back to Paine. (p. 194)
The setting up of institutions independent from the state or the ruling classes... is the key activity in preparing for a peoples revolution. In Eastern Europe this took the form of civic and cultural activity (p. 195), e.g., Workers' Defence Committee
provided concrete assistance to those in trouble with the authorities, and their families. Other terms for similar activity:
Vaclav Havel
suggested there should be no discourse with the centre of power but that activists should "fight only for those concrete causes, and fight for them unswervingly to the end" (p. 196). Compare this with Gandhi's earlier call for courage . Chosen well these independent institutions will rattle the establishment. The idea of cultivating 'a predisposition to truth' (Havel/ Gandhi) is seen as key (p. 197).
The final collapse of the USSR is not like the rest of Eastern Europe as it was a mainly top down operation rather than one of peoples power. There was still a remarkable and unexpected lack of violence.
The main thesis is reiterated: "The professionals of power, in or out of government, were consistently caught off-guard by the failures of superior force and the successes of nonviolence" (p. 216). Contemporary political theory could 'neither forsee nor explain' the successes of non-violent people power
.
's redefinition of the word 'power' has a strong echo from Paine. She says: "Power corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert." (Schell p. 218). She goes so far as to deny ascription of 'power' to individual action.
Max Weber
is probably more realistic in asserting that power is the assertion of will in a social relationship. (p. 220) But this does mean that in limiting its meaning Hannah Arendt
can discuss political power in more detail. The assertion of the will of the tyrant is ultimately an illusion, the tyrant is dependent on his supporters.
Violence can never create real political power in Arendt's sense: "To substitute violence for power can bring victory, but the price is very high; for it is not only paid by the vanquished, it is also paid by the victor in terms of his own power." (Schell p. 222). According to John Stuart Mill
public opinion guides will and "a great part of all power consists in... willing allegiance" (Schell p. 229).
in the USA. Although he sees non-violent action being only 'curative' or reforming of a liberal democratic system.
Jonathan Schell
Jonathan Edward Schell is an author and visiting fellow at Yale University, whose work primarily deals with nuclear weapons.-Career:His work has appeared in The Nation, The New Yorker, and TomDispatch...
published in 2003.
Schell starts by discussing the cultural embeddedness of men, patriotism and death in battle (going back to the Athenian - Pericles
Pericles
Pericles was a prominent and influential statesman, orator, and general of Athens during the city's Golden Age—specifically, the time between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars...
). From this classic root political morality has held onto the need for 'standing up for principles with force', which in practice quickly descends to "plunder, exploitation and massacre".
In the 5th century, St. Augustine
St. Augustine
-People:* Augustine of Hippo or Augustine of Hippo , father of the Latin church* Augustine of Canterbury , first Archbishop of Canterbury* Augustine Webster, an English Catholic martyr.-Places:*St. Augustine, Florida, United States...
conjoined this with Christian love... by theorising 'separate realms' for political and religious morality. Politics has thus long been wedded to violence... it is hard to conceptualise a political ideology that does not have a resort to violence clause. As Schell says there has been, "an age old reliance of politics on violent means". (p. 4)
Schell then puts forward his main thesis that "violence has now become dysfunctional as a political instrument" (p. 7) and that "forms of non-violent action can serve effectively in the place of violence at every level of political affairs". (p. 8)
The key political progress has been the idea of democracy - even the worst democracy - carries within it the principle of equality which is a deeply seated contradiction to an also deeply embedded practice of inequality - see Tocqueville. Ironically modern national democracy allowed for a new kind of army, in which it was possible to mobilise masses of men prepared to die - apparently in defence of their own national interest and the principle of democracy. The disaster of the modern war system was fed by an unholy confluence of democracy, science, industrial revolution, and imperialism
Imperialism
Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...
which developed through the 19th century.
Power
Power came to be widely defined by the ability to wage war. He describes imperialism as "a monotonous record of one sided slaughter" (p. 75) He argues that the was an end of limited war between 'great powers' after 1870 (p. 44). After that we had 1914 and the period of total or world war until 1946. Then the period of Cold WarCold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
in which the public appearances of a strategic balance of power became more important than the reality of a balance of actual power. The A-bomb made a balance of actual power obsolete (p. 62).
People's war - wars of national self-determination
The first modern people's war was the Spanish resistance to the French invasion 1807-14 (p. 68). A people's war that showed how a superior force can be worn down by lesser military strength contrary to the classic rules of conventional warfare. The main need was to endure, and an armed population. George WashingtonGeorge Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
also understood this need to endure. "Washington was always aware that his most important task was to insure the survival of his own forces - not strictly for military purposes but to personify the unconquerable will of the American people" (p. 157).
The big downside of people's war is that the whole people then become subject to retaliation (p. 81). In the Japanese retaliation against the Chinese communists, the population dropped from 45 million to 25 million. With this level of violence, political ideals are what buoys the resistance up. It also allowed humanitarian treatment of prisoners by the communist forces to be maintained.
In a people's war it is important that war is kept subordinate to politics. This is the first stage of extracting politics from the war machine. Politics here means the creation of a civil administration from the ground up. For Mao
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
the most important goal and foundation of this politics was the redistribution of land from rich to poor.
A militarised politics can easily segue into a totalitarian politics as it did in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
via conventional warfare
Conventional warfare
Conventional warfare is a form of warfare conducted byusing conventional military weapons and battlefield tactics between two or more states in open confrontation. The forces on each side are well-defined, and fight using weapons that primarily target the opposing army...
against the American backed Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
.
People's war became the principle instrument of self-determination and social change in the third world from around the 1950s. If a population is united, an imperial war against it is difficult to win. Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
understood this in relation to Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
in 1958. Even when he had achieved a military victory it did not lead to a political one.
Cold war
The nuclear stand off produced the a stalemate in the war system. The last resort was unusable. '"In both (nuclear deterrence and people war) violence became not so much an instrument for producing physical effects as a kind of bloody system of communication, through which the antagonists produced messages to one another about will." (p. 97) Nuclear deterrence became a conflict waged by appearances to produce intangible effects on leaderships and populations. Peoples war also came to be decided by intangible effects on hearts and minds of both sides. In both situations the capacity of violence for achieving political ends is thrown into doubt.Revolution
A similar mindset of belief in violence pervaded western theories of revolution. Right, left and centre theorists and leaders agreed that that revolution had to be violent. Power was only understood as an effect of violent coercive rule. (except for a few voices, e.g., TolstoyTolstoy
Tolstoy, or Tolstoi is a prominent family of Russian nobility, descending from Andrey Kharitonovich Tolstoy who served under Vasily II of Moscow...
)
Only two expressly political theorists thought consistently about non-violence: Mahatma Gandhi and Hannah Arendt.
Mohandas K. Gandhi
Mohandas K. Gandhi believed that courage was a more important attribute of those seeking liberation than a desire for non-violence or Satyagraha. At one point he even acted as conscription agent for the British military in South Africa. (date?) Gandhi appealed to the 'spiritual' strength of Indian peoples to oppose the Western Imperial (war) system.The assumption here is that tyrants and ruling classes alike only have the power that we invest in them. Give them nothing and they are naked and have no power. "The central role of consent in all government meant that non-cooperation - the withdrawal of consent - was something more than a morally satisfying activity; it was a powerful weapon in the real world." (p. 129) "Non-cooperation is not a passive state, it is an intensely active state - more active than physical resistance or violence."' (p. 130) Schell quoting from Gandhi's Essential Writings (p. 99)
The Gandhi programme of Satyagraha ("the quiet and irresistible pursuit of truth") was accompanied by 'the constructive programme'. This campaigned and organised to achieve concrete goals such as justice for workers, peace between factions, village hygiene and diet, the condition of women, etc. The idea is to do anything that obstructed the solidarity of the nation and that facilitates the production of a democratic political culture. "Constructive effort is political power" Gandhi's Essential Writings (p. 259)
Revolutions and violence
Schell looks for the nonviolent actions that are part of what are often represented as broadly violent revolutions. (p. 143) He defines violence: "Violence is the method by which the ruthless few can subdue the passive many. Non-violence is a means by which the active many can overcome the ruthless few." (p. 144). He discusses The Glorious Revolution of 1689 in England and the American, French and Russian Revolutions. He makes the interesting observation that revolutions are typified as violent and the subsequent establishment of a new regime is assumed to be peaceful, whereas the reverse has "more often been the case". (p. 144) in the French revolution, the American, even the Russian...(p. 175) (p. 178). More people died making Potemkin the film than in the actual storming of the Winter Palace! The Russian Revolution was more of a victory of a 'mass minority' ... than a real people's revolution as happened in France or America (p. 183).The English 'Glorious Revolution' of 1689 "London was in fact the first of many modern capitals whose rebellious spirit was to infect and destroy the allegiance of an army of an ancien regime". This was William of Orange
William III of England
William III & II was a sovereign Prince of Orange of the House of Orange-Nassau by birth. From 1672 he governed as Stadtholder William III of Orange over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic. From 1689 he reigned as William III over England and Ireland...
versus King James
James II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...
, with defections at the non-battle at Salisbury.
There has been a near universal failure of theorists to predict the non-violent fall of powers. He quotes Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
Thomas "Tom" Paine was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States...
: "Tis not in numbers but in unity that our great strength lies". In the American Revolution Committees of Correspondence were formed for "mutually fostering and co-ordinating activity". These were the basic political units.
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
realised that it is only by cultivating the love and admiration of the people that a ruler can raise taxes or an army or get voted in. This love "infuses into (army and navy) that liberal obedience without which your army would be base rabble and you navy nothing but rotten timber" (p. 159).
East Europe
Schell's sources here are Adam MichnikAdam Michnik
Adam Michnik is the editor-in-chief of Gazeta Wyborcza, where he sometimes writes under the pen-names of Andrzej Zagozda or Andrzej Jagodziński. In 1966–1989 he was one of the leading organizers of the illegal, democratic opposition in Poland...
, Vaclav Havel
Václav Havel
Václav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...
and Gyorgy Konrad
György Konrád
György Konrád is a Hungarian novelist and essayist, known as an advocate of individual freedom. He was a dissident under the communist regime.- Life :...
as sources to explain the 'unsuspected' weakness of the Soviet empire. In their beginnings they "did not aim at state power" (p. 191) but aimed at "achieving immediate changes in daily life" within what was called 'civil society' a term that goes back to Paine. (p. 194)
The setting up of institutions independent from the state or the ruling classes... is the key activity in preparing for a peoples revolution. In Eastern Europe this took the form of civic and cultural activity (p. 195), e.g., Workers' Defence Committee
Workers' Defence Committee
The Workers’ Defense Committee was a Polish civil society group that emerged under communist rule to give aid to prisoners & their families after the June 1976 protests & government crackdown...
provided concrete assistance to those in trouble with the authorities, and their families. Other terms for similar activity:
- flying university
- parallel structures
- second culture
- revolutionary councils' (Arendt)
Vaclav Havel
Václav Havel
Václav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...
suggested there should be no discourse with the centre of power but that activists should "fight only for those concrete causes, and fight for them unswervingly to the end" (p. 196). Compare this with Gandhi's earlier call for courage . Chosen well these independent institutions will rattle the establishment. The idea of cultivating 'a predisposition to truth' (Havel/ Gandhi) is seen as key (p. 197).
The final collapse of the USSR is not like the rest of Eastern Europe as it was a mainly top down operation rather than one of peoples power. There was still a remarkable and unexpected lack of violence.
The main thesis is reiterated: "The professionals of power, in or out of government, were consistently caught off-guard by the failures of superior force and the successes of nonviolence" (p. 216). Contemporary political theory could 'neither forsee nor explain' the successes of non-violent people power
People power
The term as currently defined was first used in the Philippines in 1986, during the revolt thattoppled the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos. The word is derived from the 1960's flower power movement against the Vietnam War....
.
Hannah Arendt's ideas of power
Hannah ArendtHannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt was a German American political theorist. She has often been described as a philosopher, although she refused that label on the grounds that philosophy is concerned with "man in the singular." She described herself instead as a political theorist because her work centers on the fact...
's redefinition of the word 'power' has a strong echo from Paine. She says: "Power corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert." (Schell p. 218). She goes so far as to deny ascription of 'power' to individual action.
Max Weber
Max Weber
Karl Emil Maximilian "Max" Weber was a German sociologist and political economist who profoundly influenced social theory, social research, and the discipline of sociology itself...
is probably more realistic in asserting that power is the assertion of will in a social relationship. (p. 220) But this does mean that in limiting its meaning Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt was a German American political theorist. She has often been described as a philosopher, although she refused that label on the grounds that philosophy is concerned with "man in the singular." She described herself instead as a political theorist because her work centers on the fact...
can discuss political power in more detail. The assertion of the will of the tyrant is ultimately an illusion, the tyrant is dependent on his supporters.
Violence can never create real political power in Arendt's sense: "To substitute violence for power can bring victory, but the price is very high; for it is not only paid by the vanquished, it is also paid by the victor in terms of his own power." (Schell p. 222). According to John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...
public opinion guides will and "a great part of all power consists in... willing allegiance" (Schell p. 229).
Non-violent change in liberal democracy?
Schell sees the 'taming of violence' being written into liberalisms 'genetic code'. His example is the Civil Rights MovementCivil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
in the USA. Although he sees non-violent action being only 'curative' or reforming of a liberal democratic system.
External links
- Hell on earth: In The Unconquerable World, Jonathan Schell decries war as a political tool by Howard ZinnHoward ZinnHoward Zinn was an American historian, academic, author, playwright, and social activist. Before and during his tenure as a political science professor at Boston University from 1964-88 he wrote more than 20 books, which included his best-selling and influential A People's History of the United...
- Coercion vs. cooperation
- Review at http://www.yesmagazine.org/
- The Unconquerable World - Rector’s Forum presentation by Jonathan Schell, November 23, 2003 (PDF)
- The Nation
- Review from Peace Magazine by John Bacher