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Diversity of tactics
Diversity of tactics is a phenomenon wherein a social movement makes periodic use of force for disruptive or defensive purposes, stepping beyond the limits of nonviolent resistance, but also stopping short of total militarization. It also refers to the theory which asserts this to be the most effective strategy of civil disobedience for social change. Diversity of tactics may promote nonviolent tactics, or armed resistance, or a range of methods in between, depending on the level of repression the political movement is facing. It sometimes claims to advocate for "forms of resistance that maximize respect for life".
The first clear articulation of diversity of tactics appears to have emerged from Malcolm X and other radical leaders in the Civil Rights Movement of the early 1960s. Shortly after Malcolm announced his departure from the Nation of Islam, he gave a speech entitled "The Black Revolution" where he promoted solidarity between those who practiced armed resistance against racism, and those who practiced nonviolence. He stated:
In March 1964, Gloria Richardson, leader of the Cambridge Maryland chapter of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), took Malcolm X up on his offer to join forces with civil rights organizations. Richardson (who'd recently been honored on stage at the March on Washington) told The Baltimore Afro-American that "Malcolm is being very practical...The federal government has moved into conflict situations only when matters approach the level of insurrection. Self-defense may force Washington to intervene sooner."
In the same year, Howard Zinn (then on SNCC's Board of Advisers) published his essay "The Limits of Nonviolence," in the influential civil rights journal Freedomways. In the article, the historian concluded that nonviolent direct action would not be sufficient to break Jim Crow in the South. In his 1965 book, SNCC: The New Abolitionists, Zinn explained the philosophy that dominated the movement:
In 1968, Zinn elaborated further on tactical diversity with his book Disobedience and Democracy: Nine Fallacies on Law and Order. The text was published in response to liberal Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, who'd recently written (in his book Concerning Dissent and Civil Disobedience) that he supported Gandhian forms of direct action, but not tactics that involved resisting arrest; Fortas also rejected campaigns involving the strategic violation of normally just laws, or the destruction of another party's property, or the injury to an oppressive party, including in direct self-defense (All of these tactics were becoming widespread in the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power movement and in the campaign against the Vietnam War).
Zinn produced an extended rebuttal to Fortas’ position; Regarding resisting arrest and judgment, Zinn countered that Gandhi had accepted the bad influence of Plato, who in his Crito dialogue, portrayed Socrates as cheerfully accepting his death sentence on the grounds that the citizen is obligated to abide by the final decision of the government, which is like a master to the people. Zinn points out that these are "the arguments of the Legalist, of the statist, not the libertarian," and notes that Plato disdained democracy. In the face of Plato's concern that sustained defiance of the law could topple the foundations of government, Zinn argues: "When unjust decisions become the rule, then the government and its officials should be toppled."
On the breaking of normally just laws and conventions for the purpose of protest, Zinn notes that some of society's worst problems—"like hunger, or poor housing, or lack of medical care"—are not the result of discrete laws, but of system-wide conditions; therefore targets cannot always be precise: "Our most deep-rooted troubles are not represented by specific laws, but are so woven into the American society that the only way to get at them is to attack the fabric at any vulnerable point."
Zinn rejects the liberal's "easy and righteous dismissal of violence," noting that Henry Thoreau, the popularizer of the term civil disobedience, approved of the armed insurrection of John Brown. Zinn acknowledges that "nonviolence is more desirable than violence as a means" but also posits that:
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Diversity of tactics
Diversity of tactics is a phenomenon wherein a social movement makes periodic use of force for disruptive or defensive purposes, stepping beyond the limits of nonviolent resistance, but also stopping short of total militarization. It also refers to the theory which asserts this to be the most effective strategy of civil disobedience for social change. Diversity of tactics may promote nonviolent tactics, or armed resistance, or a range of methods in between, depending on the level of repression the political movement is facing. It sometimes claims to advocate for "forms of resistance that maximize respect for life".
The first clear articulation of diversity of tactics appears to have emerged from Malcolm X and other radical leaders in the Civil Rights Movement of the early 1960s. Shortly after Malcolm announced his departure from the Nation of Islam, he gave a speech entitled "The Black Revolution" where he promoted solidarity between those who practiced armed resistance against racism, and those who practiced nonviolence. He stated:
In March 1964, Gloria Richardson, leader of the Cambridge Maryland chapter of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), took Malcolm X up on his offer to join forces with civil rights organizations. Richardson (who'd recently been honored on stage at the March on Washington) told The Baltimore Afro-American that "Malcolm is being very practical...The federal government has moved into conflict situations only when matters approach the level of insurrection. Self-defense may force Washington to intervene sooner."
In the same year, Howard Zinn (then on SNCC's Board of Advisers) published his essay "The Limits of Nonviolence," in the influential civil rights journal Freedomways. In the article, the historian concluded that nonviolent direct action would not be sufficient to break Jim Crow in the South. In his 1965 book, SNCC: The New Abolitionists, Zinn explained the philosophy that dominated the movement:
In 1968, Zinn elaborated further on tactical diversity with his book Disobedience and Democracy: Nine Fallacies on Law and Order. The text was published in response to liberal Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, who'd recently written (in his book Concerning Dissent and Civil Disobedience) that he supported Gandhian forms of direct action, but not tactics that involved resisting arrest; Fortas also rejected campaigns involving the strategic violation of normally just laws, or the destruction of another party's property, or the injury to an oppressive party, including in direct self-defense (All of these tactics were becoming widespread in the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power movement and in the campaign against the Vietnam War).
Zinn produced an extended rebuttal to Fortas’ position; Regarding resisting arrest and judgment, Zinn countered that Gandhi had accepted the bad influence of Plato, who in his Crito dialogue, portrayed Socrates as cheerfully accepting his death sentence on the grounds that the citizen is obligated to abide by the final decision of the government, which is like a master to the people. Zinn points out that these are "the arguments of the Legalist, of the statist, not the libertarian," and notes that Plato disdained democracy. In the face of Plato's concern that sustained defiance of the law could topple the foundations of government, Zinn argues: "When unjust decisions become the rule, then the government and its officials should be toppled."
On the breaking of normally just laws and conventions for the purpose of protest, Zinn notes that some of society's worst problems—"like hunger, or poor housing, or lack of medical care"—are not the result of discrete laws, but of system-wide conditions; therefore targets cannot always be precise: "Our most deep-rooted troubles are not represented by specific laws, but are so woven into the American society that the only way to get at them is to attack the fabric at any vulnerable point."
Zinn rejects the liberal's "easy and righteous dismissal of violence," noting that Henry Thoreau, the popularizer of the term civil disobedience, approved of the armed insurrection of John Brown. Zinn acknowledges that "nonviolence is more desirable than violence as a means" but also posits that: