Barbara Deming
Barbara Deming
Barbara Demingwas an American feminist and advocate of nonviolent social change...
people mind enemy
Vengeance is not the point; change is. But the trouble is that in most people's minds the thought of victory and the thought of punishing the enemy coincide.
people needs
People who attack others need rationalizations for doing so. We undermine those rationalizations.
people our-society prison
All prisons that have existed in our society to date put people away as no human being should ever be put away.
cutting people littles
After the revolution, it might very well remain necessary to place people where they could not do harm to others. But the one under restraint should be cut off from the rest of society as little as possible.
hurt struggle moving
Something seems wrong to most people engaged in struggle when they see more people hurt on their own side than on the other side. They are used to reading this as an indication of defeat, and a complete mental readjustment is required of them. Within the new terms of struggle, victory has nothing to do with their being able to give more punishment than they take (quite the reverse); victory has nothing to do with their being able to punish the other at all; it has to do simply with being able, finally, to make the other move... Vengeance is not the point; change is.
determination opportunity thinking
Balance and control come from healthy anger. This is just as aggressive as the unhealthy kind. But it is based on a belief and hope for change in social roles and institutions. Healthy anger demands change and creates the confrontations needed for change to occur. It also gives the other an opportunity to help make that change. “Our task, of course, is to transmute the anger that is affliction into the anger that is determination to bring about change. I think, in fact, that one could give that as a definition of revolution.
determination anger healthy
there is clearly a kind of anger that is healthy. It is the concentration of one's whole being in the determination: this must change.
self masculine-and-feminine two
nonviolent actions are by their nature androgynous. In them the two impulses that have long been treated as distinct, 'masculine' and 'feminine,' the impulse of self-assertion and the impulse of sympathy, are clearly joined; the very genius of nonviolence, in fact, is that it demonstrates them to be indivisible, and so restores human community ...
christian jesus love-you
Manliness has been defined as assertion of the self. Womanliness has been defined as the nurturing of selves other than our own - even if we quite lose our own in the process. (Women are supposed to find in this loss their true fulfillment.) But every individual person is born both to assert herself or himself and to act out a sympathy for others trying to find themselves - in Christian terms, meant to love one's self as one loves others ... Jesus never taught that we should split up that commandment - assigning 'love yourself' to men, 'love others' to women. But society has tried to.
vengeance
Vengeance is not the point: change is.
moving men tactics
Nonviolent tactics can move into action on our behalf men not naturally inclined to act for us.
our-lives
We cannot live without our lives
real able gains
It is one thing to be able to state the price the antagonist paid, another to be able to count you own real gains.
peace nice doe
To resort to power one need not be violent, and to speak to conscience one need not be meek. The most effective action both resorts to power and engages conscience. Nonviolent actions does not have to get others to be nice. It can in effect force them to consult their consciences. Nor does it have to petition those in power to do something about a situation. It can face the authorities with a new fact and say: Accept this new situation which we have created.