1950s, Loving Your Enemies (November 1957)
Context: But there is another way. And that is to organize mass non-violent resistance based on the principle of love. It seems to me that this is the only way as our eyes look to the future. As we look out across the years and across the generations, let us develop and move right here. We must discover the power of love, the power, the redemptive power of love. And when we discover that we will be able to make of this old world a new world. We will be able to make men better. Love is the only way.
“Mass non-violent protest is predicated on the humanity of the oppressor. Quite often it doesn't work. Sometimes it does, in unexpected ways. But judgements about that would have to be based on intimate knowledge of the society and its various strands.”
'Resonant and unwavering', Interview with Stuart Alan Becker, Bangkok Post http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20080714.htm.
Quotes 2000s, 2007-09
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Noam Chomsky 334
american linguist, philosopher and activist 1928Related quotes
Source: Models of Mental Illness (1984), p. 245
Source: Straight From The Heart (1985), Chapter Five, A Balancing Act, p. 111-112
"Message to Campus Community" http://zungu.tumblr.com/post/12620438282/message-to-campus-community, November 10, 2011.
“It is not possible to make a person or society non-violent by compulsion.”
Young India (13 September 1928). All Men Are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections, compiled and edited by Krishna Kripalani, The Continuum, (2011) p. 34
1920s
Source: 1990s and later, Managing in a Time of Great Change (1995), p. 205
“There are no "human" oppressors. Oppressors have lost their humanity.”
"Man – and Woman" in Vermont Freeman (Mid-February 1972)
1970s
Context: There are no "human" oppressors. Oppressors have lost their humanity. On one hand "slavishness," on the other hand "pigness." Six of one, half dozen of the other. Who wins?
Many women seem to be walking a tightrope now. Their qualities of love, openness, and gentleness were too deeply enmeshed with qualities of dependency, subservience, and masochism. How do you love — without being subservient? How do you maintain a relationship without giving up your identity and without getting strung out? How do you reach out and give your heart to your lover, but maintain the soul which is you?
Harijan (21 July 1940)
1940s