- Creative Nonviolence acknowledges, repairs, and transforms the infinite relatedness and unity of all life.
- Injustice depends on either active or passive support (resulting from silence, indifference or fear). Violence is any personal, interpersonal, institutional or systemic act, attitude or policy that dehumanizes, diminishes or destroys. It thrives by passive or active support. Creative nonviolence is the process of transforming this support for injustice by mobilizing and unleashing nonviolent people power.
- Each of us has a piece of the truth and the un-truth. Creative Nonviolence is a process of acknowledging and revealing the pieces of truth and untruth on both sides in a conflict as the basis for a just and constructive solution. Creative Nonviolence seeks the truth rather than the conquest of one side over another.
- Creative Nonviolence is the process of transforming Us vs. Them thought and action.
- Creative nonviolence unifies rather than threatens; integrates rather than fragments and destroys; draws us closer rather than excluding and separating; and challenges all double standards.
- Creative Nonviolence recognizes that each of us has tendencies toward both violence and love. It maintains, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn put it, “The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.” Each of us has only a piece of the truth, and therefore each of us possesses a piece of the un-truth. Creative nonviolence fails when it is arrogant or self-righteous, especially when it claims to be free of violence, or when it asserts that only others are violent.
- Creative Nonviolence is stronger than the Power of Violence, which is a destructive force designed to defeat and dominate others and that often seeks to separate “us” from “them.” Creative Nonviolence, for this reason, disputes the claim that violence establishes peace, justice and order in any just and lasting way.
- Creative Nonviolence pursues its goal, not with passivity or retaliation, but with creative engagement and loving resistance. It willingly faces the consequences of its engagement and resistance.
- Creative Nonviolence is nurtured and strengthened by community, relationship-building, ongoing education, and practice. It requires training and experience in love, courage, creativity, and relentless persistence. This includes examining and transforming the ways that violence and injustice has been consciously or unconsciously internalized.
- Creative Nonviolence is not a path toward an idealistic utopia but a process for envisioning, weaving, mending, and honoring the web of personal, interpersonal, social, global and ecological relationships. The spirit and methods of Creative Nonviolence are suited to this ongoing creation and re-creation of the world.
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