September 18: “Power rightly exercised must sit light as a flower; no one should feel the weight of it.” –Gandhi (Towards New Horizons, Pyarelal, from Mahatma Gandhi, The Last Phase) If society is to learn the art of non-cooperation, education for it should begin in childhood. Well, actually, it already does, but most of us… read more
Tag Archives: cooperation
“Teaming up”–Daily Metta
August 10: “If it is [our] privilege to be independent, it is equally [our] duty to be interdependent.” –Gandhi (Young India, April 25 1929) A friend recently offered an approach to peacebuilding and nonviolent resistance that I thought fascinating: working together in teams of two. The idea is ancient, he said, thinking about the Jewish… read more
“Nonviolence as an Evolutionary Force”–Daily Metta
January 12 “Non-cooperation is a process of evolution: it has most aptly been described as Evolutionary Revolution.” –Gandhi (Young India, February 23, 1921) Gandhi understood that nonviolent non-cooperation against a State, aka civil resistance, meant a closer form of cooperation among people. Assured that such actions would not lead to disorder or chaos, he put… read more
“Duty of Noncooperation and Cooperation”–Daily Metta
January 7 “Sometimes non-cooperation becomes as much a duty as cooperation.” -Gandhi (Young India 1-19-1921) In Sanskrit, the word for “duty” is dharma. There is an expression repeated throughout the Indian spiritual tradition, ahimsa paramo dharma, nonviolence is the highest dharma, or duty. There should be no wonder why Gandhi was so keen on duties. It… read more
The limits of non-cooperation as a strategy for social change
Civil disobedience is vital, but it is insufficient to transform society. A new science of cooperation illuminates the path ahead. Vukovar, October 1991. Credit: www.croatia.org. All rights reserved. When the Croatian town of Vukovar was taken over by the Serbian Army in 1991 after 90 days of bombing, Alexander Jevtić, a Serb who had made the town his… read more
Cooperation Among Yeast Cells Yields Unexpected Benefits
By Kari Risher Metta Research Fellow Any human among us can intuitively observe that, as we cooperate with others to serve the needs of our communities rather than ourselves as individuals, we reap social benefits that may not always be quantifiable. As we gain a reputation for being helpful, we are naturally liked and supported… read more
