On Demand
Truth-Force
As the Metropolitan Opera revives the Philip Glass opera "Satyagraha." Helen Tworkov, founder of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, is coordinating The Satya Graha Forum, a series of events exploring the on-going influence of Gandhi’s concept of active non-violence to achieve social change. She is joined by participants Pavan Sukhdev, recently appointed "Study Leader" for the G8+5 Environmental Ministers global study on the Economics of Ecosystem Degradation and Biodiversity Loss, and Mark Kurlansky, author of Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea (Modern Library reprint, 2008).
More information about the Garrison Institute's Climate Change event
- About the Brian Lehrer Show »
- Staff Bios »
- Contact Us »
- Tapes and Transcripts »
- Latest Episode »
- Show Archive »
Features & Series
Podcast
Stay up to date.
Subscribe to the Podcast
YOU PRODUCE The Brian Lehrer Show
Be a listener-producer with facts, questions and people you'd like to hear on the air.
More
The Brian Lehrer Show Scrapbook
Visit the scrapbook for daily photos and miscellany from The Brian Lehrer Show.
More
Shop at Amazon!
The Brian Lehrer Show picks
Start your Amazon shopping on WNYC.org and a portion of your total purchase goes to WNYC.
More
Comments
Can Ms. Tworkov, described in an article as a Jewish convert to Buddhism, explain why there are so many Jewish converts to Buddhism? Doesn't Judaism offer, in its depth, complexity and range, many of the same things Buddhism offers,INCLUDING theories of non-violence? Why not just embrace/study Judaism more deeply?
When I was a kid, virtually every Buddhist we knew was an East Coast Jewish transplant to California. Meanwhile, our once-Buddhist Chinese family and friends had long since converted to various Christian denominations in their assimilative journey. Both groups running in circles away from their own shadows?
Also, what is the distinction between Jewish open inquiry/talmudic questioning and buddhist inquiry? Is the latter more internally focused?
Converts have their on personal reasons for converting and they should be asked themselves as to why they chose to convert, if it's not too personal a question. You have to ask that first!
Where do you place the tactics of property destruction and political vandalism? Are these violent or can they be considered non-violent, if no one is physically hurt?
I have interpreted Satyagraha differently then mentioned on the show. The word satyagrha (is one word) and it is comination of two words satya(truth)+ agrah (demand/persuasion) which can be translated to demand for truth or this is the truth and I want to persuade (not forcefully) you about it.
The opening discussion of Ghandi's focus on apparently small issues, such as the Salt March, can be compared to the Critical Mass bicycle rides.
While the bicycle appears to be a small, almost trivial device, Critical Mass has been attacked by the City as if were a great terrorist movement.
Perhaps the simple bicycle does, in fact, represent a serious Ghandian vehicle of change.
Please do not typecast Gandhian methods as a Hindu or Buddhist tradition. Don’t forget that Gandhi was deeply steeped in The New Testament and ‘turning the other cheek’ not as being submissive but defiance.
His famous statement that “Eye for an Eye will leave everyone blind.”
I've always thought nonviolent resistance would be especially effective for Palestinian people since so much of the Israeli occupation is justified on Palestinian violence. Why do you think that has not taken off there, or has there been nonviolent resistance that we haven't heard about?
When my daughter was in first grade she came home from school one day very upset. Her teacher -- an old-fashioned school marm type -- had ridiculed a drawing by another student, holding it up in fron of the class and saying something to the effect that no one has one blue arm and one red arm. As it happened, my daughter had a patchwork shirt that indeed had one blue sleeve and one red sleeve. She went immediately to her room and pulled it from the drawer, saying, "I'm going to wear this tomorrow, Mommy."
satya = truth
aagraha = insistence
So I'd translate satyaagraha is "insistence on truth".
Robert, point taken that it's a personal question, but doesn't publishing an entire magazine about Buddhism rather takes it out of the realm of the personal?
I find the gravitation of so many Jewish people toward Buddhism fascinating, particularly since Judaism seems a much more intricate religion, and think it's a worthwhilequestion to ask.
I also think the late 20th century/early 21st century conception of Buddism among Americans is interesting, and sometimes a little skewed. To paraphrase Hanif Kureishi, people in the west are picking and choosing what they like of Buddhism. It reminds me of the mah-jong craze of the 1950's.
Judaic open inquiry is as important as non-violence - in fact, if you can't question violence and non-violence, then non-violence is unachievable.
The fundamental weakness of non-violent resistance is that it's entirely dependent on the press. And if you have a press that is either unable (in the case of dictatorships) or unwilling (in the case of modern western media) to report on the non-violent actions, the movement goes nowhere. For that reason, non-violent resistance could not work in a society like Nazi Germany where there was no free press to report the high moral standard of the peaceful resisters and the brutality of the regime. Gandhi's movement worked because there was a free press in Britain and at least some freedom of the press in India at the time.
In the beginning of your program on this topic, you asked for the translation of 'Satyagrah' and you said, did Gandhi coined this word?
No, he didn't, he prominently used this word as a slongan.
Satyagraha is made of two words, 'Satya' and 'Agraha'. Satya means 'truth' and Agraha means 'asking for' or 'preferring to'.
You are a great guy!
Such in-depth knowledge and amazing way to connecting with people.
Employing the rhetoric of nonviolence to historical and current political situations which have not had a dominant relationship with such an ideology is a waste of time, in my eyes. To say that the the American abolitionist movement or Palestinian intifada would have been more effective had they employed non-violence--as these guests define it--completely overlooks the nature of violence and oppression. The guests are lucky to live lives where they can be led to believe that nonviolence is always an option. I agree with the caller who reminded us that nonviolent philosophy was also coupled with armed resistence in the struggle for Indian independence.
asq, in the case of abolition of slavery, I DO think there could've been a non-violent solution. Other countries managed to abolish slavery without having to violently take the slaves away from the slave-owners. In the case of Israel-Palestine, it certainly seems possible that a Palestinian King or Gandhi could've made greater progress than not. Israel has a free press, and Israel's allies have a free press. If Israel is a just country, the Palestinian pursuit of a peaceful resolution would've compelled them to make concessions. And if Israel were an unjust country, they would've brutally suppressed the protests and would've come under immediate condemnation within their own society and abroad.
When you look at Buddhism throughout history, it's difficult to reconcile the modern, western perception of it (nearly a confection!) as a "peaceful" religion, or one that is somehow going to bring more "inner peace".
Countries with strong majority-Buddhist traditions have been arguably a lot less non-violent than, say, the majority of Jewish villages/ghettoes in Europe in the 1800's. Let's face it, most of the time non-violence is the result of people not having any option for force when they're being ruthlessly oppressed.
People don't seem to get that their modern search for "inner peace" is largely irrelevant to the larger political situation, where one or another group is being repressed.
This thread is closed.
Back to Episode