Part 14

VII. ACTIVE GOODWILL AND RECONCILIATION

The term "resistance" has occurred frequently in this study. As has been pointed out, this word has a negative quality, and implies opposition to the will of another, rather than an attempt to realize a positive policy. The preceding section dealt with its counterpart, "non-resistance," which has a neutral connotation, and implies that the non-resister is not involved in the immediate struggle, and that for him the refusal to inflict injury upon anyone is a higher value than the achievement of any policy of his own, either positive or negative.

Non-violent coercion, Satyagraha, and non-violent direct action, on the other hand, are definitely positive in their approach. Each seeks to effectuate a specified change in the policy of the person or group responsible for a situation which those who organize the non-violent action believe to be undesirable. However, even in such action the negative quality may appear. Satyagraha, for instance, insofar as it is a movement of opposition or "resistance" to British rule in India is negative, despite its positive objectives of establishing a certain type of government and economic system in that country.

The employment of active goodwill is another approach to the problem of bringing about desired social change. Its proponents seek to accomplish a positive alteration in the attitude and policy of the group or person responsible for some undesirable situation; but they refuse to use coercion--even non-violent coercion. Rather they endeavor to convince their opponent that it would be desirable to change his policy because the change would be in his own best interest, or would actually maintain his own real standard of values.

Many of those who would reject all coercion of an opponent practice such positive goodwill towards him, not because they are convinced that their action will accomplish the social purposes which they would like to achieve, but rather because they place such an attitude toward their fellowmen as their highest value. They insist that they would act in the same way regardless of the consequences of their action, either to the person towards whom they practice goodwill or to themselves. They act on the basis of principle rather than on the basis of expediency. In this regard they are like many of the practitioners of other methods of non-violence; but unlike them they place their emphasis on the positive action of goodwill which they will use, rather than upon a catalogue of violent actions which they will not use.

To those who practice the method of goodwill all types of education and persuasion are available. In the past they have used the printed and spoken word, and under favorable circumstances even political action. They hope to appeal to "that of God in every man," to bring about genuine repentance on the part of those who have been responsible for evil. If direct persuasion is not effective, they hope that their exhibition of love towards him whom others under the same circumstances would regard as an enemy may appeal to an aspect of his nature which is temporarily submerged, and result in a change of attitude on his part. If it does not, these advocates of goodwill are ready to suffer the consequences of their action, even to the point of death.

Action in the Face of Persecution

The practice of positive goodwill is open to the individual as well as to the group. Since he does what he believes to be right regardless of the consequences, he will act before there are enough who share his opinion to create any chance of victory over the well organized forces of the state or other institutions which are responsible for evil. The history of the martyrs of all ages presents us with innumerable examples of men who have acted in this way. Socrates is of their number, as well as the early Christians who insisted upon practicing their religion despite the edicts of the Roman empire. Jesus himself is the outstanding example of one who was willing to die rather than to surrender principle. It cannot be said of these martyrs that they acted in order to bring about reforms in society. They suffered because under the compulsion of their faith they could act in no other way, and at the time of their deaths it always looked as though they had been defeated. But in the end their sacrifices had unsought results. The proof of their effectiveness is declared in the old adage that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church."

If we seek examples from relatively recent times, we may find them in the annals of many of the pacifist sects of our own day. Robert Barclay, the Quaker apologist of the late seventeenth century, stated the position which the members of the Society of Friends so often put to the test:

"But the true, faithful and Christian suffering is for men to profess what they are persuaded is right, and so practise and perform their worship towards God, as being their true right so to do; and neither to do more than that, because of outward encouragement from men; nor any whit less, because of the fear of their laws and acts against it."

The early Quakers suffered severely under the laws of England in a day when religious toleration was virtually unheard of. George Fox himself had sixty encounters with magistrates and was imprisoned on eight occasions; yet he was not diverted from his task of preaching truth. It has been estimated that 15,000 Quakers "suffered" under the various religious acts of the Restoration. But they continued to hold the principles which had been stated by twelve of their leaders, including Fox, to King Charles shortly after his return to England:

"Our principle is, and our practice always has been, to seek peace and ensue it; to follow after righteousness and the knowledge of God; seeking the good and welfare, and doing that which tends to the peace of all.

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"When we have been wronged, we have not sought to revenge ourselves; we have not made resistance against authority; but whenever we could not obey for conscience sake, we have suffered the most of any people in the nation...."

These sufferings did not go unheeded. Even the wordly Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary concerning Quakers on their way to prison: "They go like lambs without any resistance I would to God they would either conform or be more wise and not be catched."

In Massachusetts, where the Puritans hoped to establish the true garden of the Lord, the lot of the Quakers was even more severe. Despite warnings and imprisonments, Friends kept encroaching upon the Puritan preserve until the Massachusetts zealots, in their desperation over the failure of the gentler means of quenching Quaker ardor, condemned and executed three men and a woman. Even Charles II was revolted by such extreme measures, and ordered the colony to desist. After a long struggle the Quakers, along with other advocates of liberty of conscience, won their struggle for religious liberty even in Massachusetts. There can be little doubt that their sufferings played an important part in the establishment of religious liberty as an American principle.

In our own day the conscientious objector to military service, whatever his motivation and philosophy, faces a social situation very similar to that which confronted these early supporters of a new faith. For the moment there is little chance that his insistence upon following the highest values which his conscience recognizes will bring an end to war, because there are not enough others who share his convictions. He takes his individual stand without regard for outward consequences to himself, because his conviction leaves him no other alternative. But even though his "sufferings" do not at once make possible the universal practice of goodwill towards all men, they may in the end have the result of helping to banish war from the world.

FOOTNOTES:

Robert Barclay, An Apology for the True Christian Divinity; being an Explanation and Vindication of the Principles and Doctrines of the People Called Quakers (Philadelphia: Friends' Book Store, 1908), Proposition XIV, Section VI, 480.

A. Ruth Fry, Quaker Ways: An Attempt to Explain Quaker Beliefs and Practices and to Illustrate them by the Lives and Activities of Friends of Former Days (London: Cassell, 1933), 126, 131.

Quoted by Margaret E. Hirst, The Quakers in Peace and War: an Account of Their Peace Principles and Practice (New York: George H. Doran, 1923), 115-116.

Quoted in Fry, Quaker Ways, 128-129.

Hirst, 327; Rufus M. Jones, The Quakers in the American Colonies (London: Macmillan, 1923), 3-135.

Coercion or Persuasion?

A man who is willing to undergo imprisonment and even death itself rather than to cease doing what he believes is right knows in his own heart that coercion is not an effective means of persuasion. The early Quakers saw this clearly. Barclay stated his conviction in these words:

"This forcing of men's consciences is contrary to sound reason, and the very law of nature. For man's understanding cannot be forced by all the bodily sufferings another man can inflict upon him, especially in matters spiritual and super-natural: 'Tis argument, and evident demonstration of reason, together with the power of God reaching the heart, that can change a man's mind from one opinion to another, and not knocks and blows, and such like things, which may well destroy the body, but never can inform the soul, which is a free agent, and must either accept or reject matters of opinion as they are borne in upon it by something proportioned to its own nature."

And William Penn said more simply, "Gaols and gibbets are inadequate methods for conversion: this forbids all further light to come into the world."

Other religious groups who went through experiences comparable to those of the Friends came to similar conclusions. The Church of the Brethren, founded in 1709 in Germany, took as one of its leading principles that "there shall be no force in religion," and carried it out so faithfully that they would not baptize children, on the ground that this act would coerce them into membership in the church before they could decide to join of their own free will. The Brethren have refused to take part in war not only because it is contrary to the spirit of Christian love, and destroys sacred human life, but also because it is coercive and interferes with the free rights of others.