By Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound? This is an old philosophical question that most of us have heard in one form or another. For many the question seems to be a preposterous one for the immediate response is ‘certainly, because the tree will crash in a cacophony of sounds whether anyone is around or not.’ But this is not what the question asks. The question is raising the issue of perception. Sounds are a matter of perceiving and receiving vibrations and disturbances in the atmosphere. We receive and interpret the disturbance paying attention to the movement and commotion and assigning to the sounds definition and meaning. As sounds and disturbances are perceived and received it is then inputted into the brain so that the brain can make association and assignment. This in general is how we hear. This is how we perceive occurrences in our environment. So, if there are no ears to interpret the vibrations and transmit them to the brain for interpretation and assignment, and therefore no perception, does sound actually occur? The question is raising the issue that sound is a matter of perception, reception, and the ability to interpret disturbances that occur around us. The underlying question is whether sound requires a witness. If there are no witnesses to the tree falling and sending vibrations throughout the atmosphere, does it really make a sound, or is sound only a matter of perception, reception, and interpretation.

I find myself asking this same question, but in this case regarding political nonviolent action as a change agent. I want to distinguish nonviolence as a political tool and agent, versus a lifestyle and spirituality. Historically nonviolence has been used by oppressed people to break loose from the chains of oppression in the face of an overwhelming specter of violence, weaponry, and usually the power of the state. As a political tactic nonviolence is utilized to expose and embarrass the brutality, inhumanity, and depravity of oppressive power. It has been historically used in an environment where the oppressor possesses carte blanche powers coupled with tools of violence to enforce rules and the interpretations and implementation of laws. On the other side of this equation are those oppressed by those systems of laws and are met when aggrieved with a cavalier and dismissive attitude. When political nonviolence is employed, even in a context where there are little to no guardrails to the brutality, there is a tacit appeal to the larger community to see, empathize, and express moral outrage against what they see. But this requires that people have some empathetic affinity with people who are brutalized and are morally and ethically outraged by what they see. The tree falls in the forest and there are ears to hear and able to interpret and transmit what is heard.

Yet there is also another component necessary for the political tool of non-violence to be effective. It is required that those who express empathy to the cause of the oppressed represent a segment of the oppressive/dominant culture. They are thus in a position for their moral outrage to register and challenge the exercise of power. But if no empathy or identification is cultivated and present between a morally attuned segment of the dominant culture and those who are oppressed then political non-violence as a transformative tool is weakened or completely emptied of any value as a tactic.

The movements of Gandhi, the heroic resistance in Tiananmen Square, The Great March of Return from Gaza, Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers, and Rev. King were all nonviolent movements standing against an obscene array of weaponry and power who had a history of using those powers to maintain the status-quo. Some of these movements succeeded in airing their grievances and having their demands met. But others failed either spectacularly or with little notice. The various outcomes point to differences in the awareness or apathy of potential allies in the dominant culture. It is a matter of how the movement or cause is perceived, received, and defined. Gandhi, King, and Chavez, for example, were successful in communicating the moral and ethical weight of their cause to a significant and receptive segment of the dominant culture. This segment of the dominant culture eventually joined in voice and bodies to question and confront the dominant position. In Tiananmen Square though images of resistance were telegraphed around the world demonstrating lop-sided resistance, yet there was not enough receptivity or motivation to ignite a significant segment of the internal Chinese society to press the case and make change.

The Great March of Return from Gaza was a nonviolent movement and was met with extreme brutality by the Israeli regime. The nonviolence of the movement resulted in at least 217 people being killed, and some 36,000 injured. Yet there was no significant outrage from within Israeli society, or from the larger world community. Throughout the years, carefully orchestrated and characterized, the Palestinian struggle has been mislabeled as dangerous to the security of Israel, and summarized as violent, unreasonable, and savage. The result is that the Palestinian movement and the brutal response of Israeli government tends to be viewed as justified, and the deaths of Palestinians, though unfortunate, is categorized as reasonable and unavoidable. For Palestinians their tree keeps falling in the forest, but no one seems to be around to hear.

The battle over books in the libraries and classrooms, what history is taught in school, and how subjects like LGBTQIA rights, Black rights, or women’s rights are told has impact on what people see and whether they are outraged by injustice or not. The maligning of the “Woke” agenda is an attack upon people daring to see wrongs and to respond to those wrongs with voices and bodies. There is pitched warfare over how we perceive things, what we see and hear, and what is not seen or heard. When people are aware of histories, issues, long pressed struggles, and years of oppression imposed on other people then there is hope that people will hear, see, and respond against the wrong with a right spirit in their hearts. When people are “Woke” the hope is that people will respond in just and empathetic ways. So, the educational battle in the US is whether histories are filtered, and those stories offered are only of America’s exceptionalism, its triumphs, and never its blemishes. When our narratives are limited, our ears become limited in what we can hear. When there are glaring omissions of people and their struggles our moral and ethical compass will fail in meeting the magnetic coordinates of right and wrong. We will no longer see or understand the course of empathy and compassion.  

When people and their struggles are seen, heard, and embraced by a segment of the dominant culture then political nonviolence is an effective tool of change. But when people do not see, do not hear, do not know the histories, and when the oppressed is continuously relegated to a place of invisibility, then nonviolence as a tool is ineffective and is simply an act of suicide.