Spirituality and Political Commitment Notes on a Liberation Theology of Nonviolence

BELDEN CLANE Spirituality and Political Commitment Notes on a Liberation Theology of Nonviolence In his new book Giving Up the Gun: pathos in the world around us (especially into lofty speculations. It forces the right Japan's Reversion to the Sword, 1543- in the third world). Spirituality and poli- si{ie of the brain into gear, seeking intu- 1879, Noel Perrin describes the decision of tical commitment can no longer be dis- itive, unconventional answers so that ac- the Japanese under the Tokugawa sho- joined. tion can be renewed with greater purpose. gunate not to use the firearms recently in- How, then, does one begin with Galilea The idea is nothing new. Impasse situa- troduced to their nation by the Portu- the task of "transforming contemplatives tions have long been viewed by visionaries guese. They based their decision not sim- into prophets and militants into mystics"? as creative junctures. St. James told his ply upon a national abhorrence of blood- Where do the two poles of action and.con- readers to "count it all joy when you meet shed, but rather upon the values tradition- templation come together? This article various trials" (1:2). But Christians have ally associated with tKe samurai warrior. will make an effort at proposing a model never taken that as seriously as they might The gun unfairly enabled any common for relating the two through an analysis of have; nor have they applied it sufficiently soldier to overcome all the prowess, learn- impasse situations and their resolution. to political realities. Ironically, we seldom ing and piety that constituted samurai Making use of change theory, Laingian are fully aware of the trials or impasses we spirituality. Hence, for 250 years Toku- psychoanalysis and the Zen conception of actually face. Therefore, we carry on with gawa Japan enjoyed peace without guns. the koan, it will suggest ways of rethinking the came hopeless activity and fail to re- By the end of that period, only scholars the Sermon on the Mount as a theology of flect on new alternatives long after the were still familiar with the words used to the unexpected, offering an appreciation need for change has become apparent. describe such weapons. Furthermore, the of the power of the paradoxical in behavr Particularly, we find ourselves amidst im- nation escaped invasion during that ioral change. Drawing upon the experi- passe situations formed by social and poli- period (at least in part) by hanging canvas ence of contemporary proponents of non- tical forces, and we view them with a murals along the seacoasts to frighten violence, it seeks, in other words, to un- passive sense of inevitability. They con- away enemy ships. On the murals were derstand anew, the words of Our Lord: tain no joy, offer no promise of paradox. painted large fortresses with threatening "Blessed are the meek, for they shall in- Instead of letting them take form before cannons atop their walls. herit the earth." us as thoroughgoing impasses, forcing to This delightful story from Asian history an end our habitual methods of acting, we raises important questions about the inter- Impasse Situations and Consciousness simply carry on with conventional solu- relationship between nonviolent liberating tions. Nowhere is this more dan^rous action and the creative revisioning of the Impasse situations are those intensely ir- than in our attitudes toward violence and world that occurs through spiritual reflec- ritable frustrations that we invariably seek its structures. tion. It lends itself to rethinking the classic to avoid, but which sometimes^because Dom Helder Cámara, Archbishop of tension between action and contempla- of their very difficulty—result in break- Recife and Olinda in Brazil, speaks out of tion, especially as it relates to political throughs of enormous creativity. They his third world experience of the deadly decision making. In a post-Puebla, mid- form a meeting place for the world of ac- impasse formed by the "spiral of vio- SALT II era, the need for an imaginative tivity and the world of refiection, the Tao-i mlençe>" This, he insists, is what most and liberating theology of nonviolence is ist yang and yin. On the one hand, in a ge- threatens our world today, primarily be- more prevalent than ever. And it can only nuine impasse every normal way of action cause we are unconscious of its operation. be discovered as praxis and meditation are is brought to a standstill. The left side of The spiral begins with what he calls vio- drawn inseparably together. Segundo the brain, with its usual application of lence number one, the injustice that is Galilea has urged that "as well as a theolo- conventional thinking, is ground to a halt. written into society and readily accepted gy, we need a spirituality of liberation." The impasse forces us to start all over by those in power'. It is an institutionalized Paradoxically, our lives require both the again, driving us to contemplation. On violence, often of the white-collar variety ap^theia of which the desert fathers wrote the other hand, the same impasse provides though seldom identified as such. But it (a spiritual distance from our own suffer- a challenge and concrete focus for con- breeds an angry frustration among the op- ring) and a consciousness of the deepest templation, keeping it from evaporating pressed, which often breaks out into vio- America/March 14,1981 197 lence number two, the violence of despair. of the decision not to avoid the impasse. Given the situation as so construed, one This, in turn, usually becomes an excuse Robert Pirsig, in Zen and the Art of becomes hopelessly lost within the tangles for the reaction of those in power and the Motorcycle Maintenance, describes the of such a bind. The more Jack tries to continuation of the spiral into violence same experience in terms of the concept of comfort Jill, the less she is comforted. But number three, the violence of backlash, or "stuckness." This is an impasse situation the very process of describing the impasse fascist violence, with its ersatz appeal to where, in his understanding, "classical situation in this way is itself therapeutic, law and order. Hence the impasse is thinking" breaks down and "romantic says Laing. It offers a way of recognizing brought to completion, with all its seem- thinking" has to struggle for a new focus. the conflict as a first step toward resolving ing inescapability. Each stage is a conven- He describes sitting along the highway one it. Again, conscientization (to use Freire's tional and predictable response to the one afternoon confronted with a screw that term) is the beginning of change. previous. sticks on the side cover assembly of his As a way out of this spiral, Dom Helder stalled motorcycle. Experience in the past The Principle of Second Order Change looks to those Abrahamic minorities in has told him to apply force to a stuck screw. So he clamps the vice grips onto his the world who possess tremendous energy In each of the illustrations offered above, screwdriver, twists as hard as he can and in their "hope against hope." Daring to a genuine impasse situation is such that suddenly tears the slot right out of the imagine the impossible, they respond out the more action one applies to escape it, screw. Immediately he is caught in the of the full consciousness of their own suf- the worse it gets. Ordinary ways of pro- kind of impasse we all have experienced. fering within situations of violent im- ceeding fail directly in proportion to the His first inclination is to push the whole passe. Their consciousness then becomes intensity with which they are tried. The machine over the embankment on the side the key to identifying and awakening the only way to resolve the problem, there- of the road. But instead; he suggests that consciousness of all those involved di- fore, is to completely reframe the situa- now is the time to roll a cigarette, to sit rectly or indirectly in the formation of tion in one's mind, looking again at the back and to let the right side of the brain such conditions. With Paulo Freiré, he assumptions previously made about it and begin to wander. He thinks about the knows that only as people recognize the formulating altogether new plans for ac- screw not as an object to be moved, but as spiral of violence to be the impasse that it tion (or inaction). Three Stanford psychi- a set of functions of rigidness and ad- is can there be any hope of resolution. atrists have recently proposed a theory of hesiveness. This may lead him to thoughts Consciousness must always precede behaviord change designed to enable their of solvents or the use of a torch or drill. In change. clients to work through problems not fact, if he stayed at it long enough, he This .focus of consciousness directly readily solved by ordinary psychothera- might come up with a way of extracting upon impasse situations is an extremely pies. They offer a contrast between what screws never thought of before, some- important concept, finding parallels in they label as principles of first- and sec- thing patentable and able to make him a many other fields. A fascination with ond-order change; their conclusions speak millionaire. Such are the possibilities in- mind-boggling problems, for example, directly to the question of impasse situa- herent in cases of "stuckness." has deep roots in Zen Buddhist thought. tions and their resolution. In Zen meditation there is a deliberate R. D. Laing uses a different language First-order change, they suggest, is our concern to cultivate impasse situations as but suggests the same thing when he de- usual procedure for solving problems.

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