Metta is growing. We are offering our first-ever weekend retreat for educators at Dillon Beach (west of Petaluma) on August 12-14, 2011. Over the course of the retreat you will have the opportunity to learn about nonviolence, explore challenging topics for educators from a nonviolence perspective (such as creating a nonviolent atmosphere in your classroom),… read more
Posts by Metta Center
Nonviolence is the Essence of Democracy
(NB: This op-ed was edited and first posted with our partners at New.Clear.Vision.) Nonviolence Is the Essence of Democracy by Stephanie N. Van Hook “The voice of the people should be the voice of God.” — M.K. Gandhi The prophetic proclamation of the death of God by Friedrich Nietzsche’s ‘madman with a lantern’ continues to… read more
I Am–Are You?
By Michael N. Nagler Film reviews have been rare in these pages, but we feel that the new film by Tom Shadyac, I Am, is extremely worth seeing. It is a real breakthrough in progress toward a new paradigm and nonviolent future in that it integrates nonviolence skillfully into the “Great Turning,” or overall paradigm… read more
What is the Bright Side of the “Arab Spring”?
Mainstream commentators have regularly listed negative reasons for the uprisings sweeping the Arab world now and even coined the term “refolution” to indicate its origin in popular refusal to continue putting up with oppression and poverty. This is similar to many analyses of the Civil Rights movement that focused on “negro” discontent reaching a climax… read more
When “Positive News” Isn’t
When “Positive News” Isn’t By Michael Nagler The outbreak of democratic aspirations in Egypt, which was relatively nonviolent — and successful, was something of a triumph of the human spirit. We could use the boost. The human spirit is under attack not just in despotic regimes from Burma to Bahrain but right here in… read more
Patna Surrender
The Patna Surrender was an event that took place during the time from 1922 to 1924 when Gandhi was in prison. A disagreement among Congress Party members over how to proceed in his absence led to a split that threatened to divide the party. Gandhi surrendered to the opposing side’s views in order to keep… read more
Nai Talim
Literally “New Education,” one of the eighteen projects in Gandhi’s constructive program. The Gandhian approach to basic education is a holistic one, where all aspects of the individual—intellectual, physical, social, and spiritual—are cultivated in a curriculum that integrates learning with hands on work that prepares young people for their life in the world, rather than… read more
Gandhi Needs No Defense- We Do
Dear friends, First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you — and then you win.” Gandhi detractors come and go and usually we pay no attention to them. Some scabrous reviews that take off from the recent biography by former NYT editor Joseph Lelyveld, however, have sent shock waves across… read more
Catastrophe Calling
By Michael Nagler and Stephanie Van Hook Tamayo and Mitsuo do not have to demonstrate this week. Our friends from Hiroshima (Mitsuo founded the Center for Nonviolence and Peace in that city) had been going out every week to protest the construction of a new nuclear plant; but this is no ordinary week for the… read more
Libya: Acid Test for Nonviolence?
by Michael Nagler March 8, 2011, submitted first to Tikkun Magazine. The nonviolent revolution in Egypt has spread across the Mideast, but in Libya, unfortunately, the “revolution” was picked up without the “nonviolent.” I have been asked whether there is anything that nonviolence could nonetheless do in the face of the bloodbath that is going… read more
