August 18:

“Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold onto it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort.”

–Gandhi (Young India, January 29, 1925)

This evening I read a message from the Sierra Club’s Executive Director on why they do the work they do, and this is what it came down to; in his words: “When you boil down our reasons for doing this work, sooner or later, you get to basic morality, to issues of right versus wrong.” It’s important to pay attention to “moral politics” as American linguist George Lakoff calls them. Everyone (almost everyone) wants to be perceived as moral, whether they are leading movements for climate,  justice and peace or legislating women’s bodies and choices, or even heading out to fight a war. To justify our actions, and to gain support from the masses, it’s true–we have to show that we are more “moral” than those who oppose us. But who has the moral high ground can be in the eye of the beholder; it’s often today not so much a question of reality as a question of rhetoric and appearances. Many people who justify violence, for example, do so with the appeal to such moral framing, i.e. “it’s moral for me to support the violence of this group because the others are immoral and won’t listen to reason.”  People of this persuasion can go so far as to claim it’s immoral to be against their violence!

Because people claim moral authority so glibly today (and the confusion has gotten only deeper since his time) — not to mention that growing numbers of us don’t believe in it at all — Gandhi felt it urgent to point out where real moral authority lies: not in rhetoric, opinion polls, robes, rituals or medals. It “comes without seeking and is retained without effort.” In other words, it draws its power from within. The discovery in nonviolence here is that we can persuade people by doing what is right, without tearing them down in the process. And here’s the challenge: both tearing people down and raising them up takes energy. Gandhi is talking about a very elevated state that we can achieve, where we do the right thing naturally, without effort. A far-off goal, to be certain! And speaking for myself, we are not there yet. Until then, he is really saying, no one should claim moral authority over anyone. A safe precaution!

Experiment in Nonviolence:

To whom do you ascribe moral authority, if anyone, and why or why not? Take a deep look: What role do you see “morality” having in movements today?