Throughout the evolution of New Society, from our activist roots in the 1970s through activist trade publishers for the past 40 years, a defining thread has been nonviolent protest and communication. Breaking generations-long histories of oppression and violence demands that we find new (often old!) ways of thinking and working together to chart a more just and sustainable path to the future.

We’re in a mess at the moment, with converging crises building across the climate, between nations, and in our own neighborhoods. As Judith points out below, humans are much smarter than this, despite being often easily fooled into assuming that the status quo is just how things are meant to be. We can change the status quo. The open secret is that we need to do it thoughtfully, and we need to do it together.

Give Peace a Chance

Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, the anti-Vietnam war protests, and the civil rights movement in the US were peaceful provocateurs on contemporary nonviolence. These are the people and the actions that led to civil disobedience in the streets of the United States in the mid-’60s and beyond. The idea and practice of civil disobedience needed all the tools it could muster, and so began New Society Publishers in Philadelphia (itself the city of Brotherly Love), as a response to this need. In those days, pamphlets on nonviolent civil disobedience were published in the thousands and freely distributed at rallies and marches throughout the country. How to resist and still behave peacefully were the central Themes.

This tension between resistance and (non)violence continues today. Has violence ever really worked? Does anything really change as a result of war, oppression and domination? And what have we done through violence but destroy each other and the earth that is our home?

Today violence is everywhere and at every level of society. A friend and I were discussing this very topic this morning. She had posted something online and used an abbreviation for a word and as a result her post was completely misunderstood. 

The angry vitriol that resulted was frightening. And this from facebook “friends”’ Where does this anger come from? It might go back to generations of violence—some behaviours more covert than others, but oppressive and cruel just the same. If this is the case, this intergenerational trauma, then nonviolent strategies are surely our only way out. More of the same old, same old, will just see history repeating itself.

Humans are much smarter than this. And yet we are so easily bamboozled. Tricked into ideas like “my way or the highway,” “out for number one,” or “I’m right and you’re an idiot.” The truth is, however, that as a social species our brilliance lies not in the hero’s brain, but in our ability to think and act together. I serve on the Board of Trustees for the Gabriola Commons. We operate by consensus — sometimes a lengthy and tedious process. Many times I have gone into a meeting quite sure I knew the solution to a problem. However, in the course of conversation new ideas emerge, or twists and turns on previously held opinions. My head literally opens up and always a better way is reached.

Some will say that nonviolence is a pipe dream: look at what we are up against in Gaza or the Sudan, or the streets of our own communities. But I say in response, show me how violence and its handmaidens are working for the well-being of all.

To learn more about nonviolent communication and activism, and how to begin the work of building bridges in our own communities, here are some New Society titles to take along on the journey.