On the faculty
of the University of Wisconsin there is a psychiatrist, Dr. Carl R.
Rogers, who has spent may years giving counsel to people of many
ages who are in personal emotional or mental trouble and cannot seem
to solve their problems unaided. As a result of his professional
experience he has come to believe that nobody will change his habits
of thinking, feeling or acting until something happens to change his
own picture or concept of himself. Other things being equal, for
example, a student will give up preparing to become a journalist and
begin to study for the law only when he can see himself as a
practicing lawyer. A thief will abandon that way of life only if he
can see himself as happier in a different way of life and know how
he can attain it. For most people, the matter of self-regard is of
primary importance.
Dr. Rogers’s
method of treating the person who comes to him for help is not the
usual way of most mental physicians, of asking questions and then
giving advice. No, he just suggests that the patient start to tell
his story and explain his difficulties. Dr. Rogers merely listens;
makes no comments; tries never to judge never by word, manner or
tone of voice; offers no advice. Once in a while at a favourable
moment he repeats something that the patient has just said, perhaps
rephrasing it slightly. Suppose the patient is a boy with a very
domineering father. The boy has told Dr. Rogers a number of
instances of that sort of domestic tyranny he has experienced, and
finally, overcome with emotion, the boy bursts out, “I hate my
father!” Dr. Rogers might then calmly say, “You say that you have
finally come to feel that you hate your father”. The boy feels
relieved by his confession, but wants to justify his feeling and so
talks on. Later there will be another moment in which Dr. Rogers
repeats a statement by the boy, perhaps this time a happier
statement. In this manner Dr. Rogers holds up a mirror, as it were,
to the patient, and lets him see himself in substantially his own
words, but uttered as an echo by another person. The mirror is the
repetition of the patient’s own statement, reflected back to the
patient without condemnation or approval or comment of any kind.
Dr. Rogers
finds that by this means the patient comes to see himself
objectively, and the patient then can make his own comparisons more
coolly, and gradually sees how to find his way out of his
difficulties. Dr. Rogers helps the patient thus to help himself.
The first step has to be a change in the patient’s own picture of
himself. This is an interesting example of the power of the
self-regarding attitude.
I would like
to suggest that among the many aspects of satyagraha, it may be
regarded as a sort of mirror help up to the opponent by the
satyagrahi, and that this would be true of both individual and mass
satyagraha. Furthermore, such a mirror seems to help the violent
opponent to “cure” himself for some of the same reasons that Dr.
Rogers’s method helps his patients to cure themselves. Let me
elaborate on this idea.
Biologically
speaking, man is a single species. There are, of course, different
races, nations, tribes, castes and religions, and different
individuals, but the similarities between people are deeper, wider,
stronger, more enduring and more important than the differences.
There is first a biological unity among people of all kinds. A man
of any race, nation, caste or religion may marry a woman of any
other race, nation caste or religion and have children by her.
Secondly, the young of human beings have a longer period of
helplessness and learning that the young of any other species. This
is what gives man his enormous power of learning. Thirdly, there is
a physiological unity. We all have the same bony structure, nerves,
blood circulation, lungs, heart and digestive organs. If any person
of any race, nation, caste, or religion has an infected appendix,
the surgeon operates him exactly the same way regardless of any
superficial differences. If an Eskimo got typhoid fever, the
physician treats him just the same way he treats a Negro who has
typhoid fever. Fourthly, all people have some sort of language by
means of which they cooperate and find meaning in life. All people
have some sort of culture, some sort of tolls, some sort of dress;
they use some sort of symbols, believe in some sort of myths, and
base their lives on some sort of assumptions. All people,
regardless of superficial differences, have emotions―love, anger,
fear, respect, hope, etc. These emotions may be called forth by
different sights, events, or actions, but all people without
exception, have emotions. All people have minds and use them.
Their concepts, the contents of their minds, may differ, but
thinking is common to all.
None of these
considerations contradicts any belief as to the essential spiritual
nature of mankind. But some people can see these aforesaid elements
of human unity more easily, clearly and surely than they envisage
spiritual unity.
Growing out of
these several elements of human unity, we find that man is a
gregarious and social creature, and we are at all times aware of and
sensitive to the attitudes of other people around us. This
awareness is not lessened in times of conflict, but is then rather
enhanced. We are always eager for the approval, if possible, for
our fellowmen. Writ large, this is the reason for the enormous
amount of time, thought and work devoted to propaganda by all
governments. Another recognition of this fact is the development
within the past twenty years of “public relations” men employed by
large corporations and even by universities, to make public
explanations and propaganda for their employers. In private life we
adhere to the customs of clothing, speech, food and festivals of our
own social group, race or nation in order to retain their approval
or at least tolerance.
When a
conflict between two groups develops and gains enough intensity so
that one group employs violence and, let us suppose, the other group
offers satyagraha, the voluntary suffering of the satyagrahis is an
appeal for recognition by all parties including the spectators, of
the unity of all men. The suffering of the satyagrahis is, as it
were, a mirror held up to the violent party, in which the violent
ones come gradually to see themselves as violating that human unity
and its implications. They see themselves as others see them. The
attitude of the onlookers is another mirror. The satyagrahis do not
should at the violent party, “Now look at yourselves! We’ll make
you realize how unjust you are, what villains you are!” No, there
is no such coercion by the satyagrahis.
It is the very
human nature of the violent attackers themselves that compels their
attention to what happens before them. They cannot escape for long
the recognition of their common human unity. They will try to
escape from or hide themselves from that unity, but as long as they
are alive they cannot dodge the fact that they are of the same
species as the satyagrahis. Not can they blink the implications of
that fact. The voluntary suffering of the satyagahis is so unusual,
so dramatic, so surprising, so wonder-provoking. Wonder naturally
evokes curiosity and attention. And the desire of the violent party
for approval of the onlookers draws attention to the contrast
between the behaviour of the violent opponents and the behaviour of
the satyagrahis. When the violent opponents see this contrast in
the mirror which the situation has provided, they begin to get a
different opinion of themselves. Then they sense the disapproval of
the onlookers, and wanting social approval, they begin to search for
ways to save their faces and yet change their actions so as to win
that approval. This process is now taking place in the Southern
States of the United States. Righting and ancient wrong takes
time. It took Gandhi twenty eight years to win freedom for India,
and it will take time for the correction of the racial injustices in
the United States. But all social processes move faster now than
fifteen years ago, so we live in high hope that the nonviolent
resistance of the American Negroes will soon win their struggle.
All this
suggests that satyagraha operates at a level deeper than
nationality, politics, military power, book education or
socio-economic ideology. It is a process working in the very
elemental human nature of mankind as a biological species. As
satyagraha becomes more widely employed, it will, partly by virtue
of this capacity as a mirror, help in the development of man’s
self-consciousness and confidence in his own capacities.