Topic #9: Six Principles for Fighting with Dignity

You know that sinking feeling that creeps in on the morning after a bad fight? It drops like a bomb right between sleep and consciousness when you finally awake and remember what happened the day before. As you rise to face the day, the incessant wheels of rumination begin.

This election cycle feels like an endless family fight where each morning we wake to face the aftermath of what happened the day prior. Our conflict is so ubiquitous that even staying away from the news won’t protect us. It’s not just on Facebook and Twitter where we consume the endless feed; the conflict leaks into everyday conversations, friendly gatherings and workplaces. We now spend our days ruminating about something we heard or read, determined for our own side of the argument to prevail. We go to sleep shaking our heads, then wake and repeat.

Our country has become like a dysfunctional divorcing family, incapable of managing our differences to the demise of both parties. We’ve screamed, we’ve gunny-sacked, we’ve overdramatized and embellished. Now, as the election cycle nears the end we find ourselves caught in a spiral of negativity that feels bound to implode.  America, we are long overdue for some family therapy, but we’re going to need a really good therapist if we want to come out of it alive.

Indeed, a conflict of this magnitude requires an exceptionally qualified mediator. What better doctor to invoke than the king of conflict resolution himself, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.? Few people in our history have more impeccable credentials for managing intractable conflict than Dr. King. If he were here today, what would the brilliant and honorable mediator prescribe for what seems to be an obstinate conflict of epic proportions between the schools of thought in this election? From his decades of experience with such conflict King crafted the Six Principles of Nonviolence, an approach we’d be smart to consider as a starting point for surviving November while maintaining our dignity, and then for moving forward more constructively.

Principle One: Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people.

Dr. King would want us to know that the high road is always the hardest road. It takes enormous courage not to sink to the level of our enemies. It’s easy to rage on Facebook and get 25 “likes.” It is time to do better, and better will likely feel harder. Important work is always hard work. 

Principle Two: Nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding.

The good doctor believed that together we could be stronger. He imagined that we could be a Beloved Community if we just understood that to wish ill for our neighbor only brings illness to ourselves. We are interconnected, and by spitting poison at one another we only poison our shared drinking well. You may counter argue by saying “Well they’re doing it!” 
Pause. Ask yourself, "Is this who I really am?" Then ask yourself, "Will this be effective?"

Principle Three: Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice not people.

Dr. King would want us to consider reframing the problem. A nonviolent approach treats our enemies as equal victims in our current system, but not necessarily evil people. Each of us was raised in a unique context that led us to the beliefs we have now, and we each feel legitimately justified in our perspective. As explained by psychologist Neil Kressel, “It is important to remember that virtually all perpetrators of great evil in the world believed that they were victims of some longstanding prior outrage that justified their militancy” (2002). 

Principle Four: Nonviolence holds that suffering can educate and transform.

Dr. King would ask us to try and see the good in our struggle. If we can be transformed by our new understanding, we can exceed possibilities that didn’t exist for us before. We can come out of this better than we were.

Principle Five: Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate.

Okay, this one isn’t easy, but Dr. King would ask us to try and respond to hate with love. Just try it on for one day. Okay, an hour. See if you feel any different.

Principle Six: Nonviolence believes that the universe is on the side of justice.

A nonviolent resistor has faith that justice and truth will prevail. We do not give up the struggle for justice, but we become less attached to it when we recognize ourselves as change agents in a larger plan that we cannot accelerate through interpersonal or intergroup attacks.

You may be concerned that applying the Six Principles could potentially turn you into a human doormat. How can we make social change with so much love and such little fight? According to Dr. King the Six Principles don’t necessarily preclude direct action against injustice, which he outlined in his Steps of Nonviolent Social Change. We can fight the good fight and still do it honorably.

King exercised this ambitious code of behavior while imprisoned by his oppressors, having suffered decades of extreme violence and murder against his own people. If one man could practice such grace in his approach to his assailants and at the same time be incredibly effective in the fight for social change, then surely we can at least give it a try.

Even a less experienced mediator than Dr. King would tell you that if something isn’t working you should try a new approach. I want to feel better when I wake up in the morning. What do you say, America, won’t you join me?