The Nonviolent Mind

Twenty years ago this week, sociolinguist Deborah Tannen published an essay in the New York Times entitled "The Triumph of the Yell" in which she outlined the debilitating effects of America’s culture of critique. This was the precursor to a longer treatise, The Argument Culture: Stopping America’s War of Words (Ballantine Books, 1999), published by Tannen five years later. As she claims in both works, our erroneous belief that opposition inevitably leads to truth has helped create an atmosphere of animosity that exalts extreme views, obscures complexity, and discourages participation in public life.

Amidst our occasional handwringing about partisanship and the decline of civility, Tannen’s insights two decades ago are a useful reminder of our perennial challenge to forge a more perfect union. There is nothing exceptional about our current state of discord. As James Madison wrote in 1787, "the latent causes of faction are … sown in the nature of man." We must remember that it has always been thus.

History may prove a particular faction to have been misguided or even delusion. Yet, in the moment, people are remarkably certain of their own righteousness—even (or especially) in the face of adversaries who are equally certain that they are on the side of truth and justice. More often than not, these mistakes derive from prejudices about our presumed adversaries. In a world full of complexity and unclear answers, we settle for mental shortcuts. As a result, America’s social and political conversations get stuck in all-too familiar dualisms between so-called "conservative" and "liberal" positions.

This fact alone, this recurring pattern of conflict and prejudice, should give us pause. It should deter us from being too proud or too judgmental as we strive to make the world a better place. Our own fallibility is one of the main reasons that nonviolence is so important.

Often, we tend to think of nonviolence only in terms of physical actions and reactions. Yet, properly understood, nonviolence begins with our habits of thought and speech. As a popular saying goes:

Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habit.
Watch your habits; they become character.Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

Or, if you prefer some Biblical advice:

Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. (James 1:19)

Either way, the point here is to guard against those poisonous emotions and prejudices that keep us embroiled in endless bickering. It does not mean that we should avoid all dissent or stop advocating for justice. As Buddhist authors Sharon Salzberg and Robert Thurman explain, "critical judgment and ethical commitment impel us to act to correct injustice (but) if anger goes along with them, it tends to make that action ineffective."

Thus, if you take delight in the moral and intellectual failures of your presumed adversaries (the right wingers, the left wingers, etc.), if you live to find that latest example of injustice from the opposite side’s lunatic fringe so that you can share your righteous anger with your friends on Facebook, beware!

You may have become ensnared in America’s culture of critique.