On Revolution and Equilibrium by Barbara Deming

A classic pacifist response to Fanon, Sartre and others who, during the 1960s, were urging the necessity of violence for Third World revolutions.

“This is the heart of my argument: We can put more pressure on the antagonist for whom we show human concern. It is precisely solicitude for his person in combination with a stubborn interference with his actions that can give us a very special degree of control (precisely in our acting both with love, if you will—in the sense that we respect his human rights—and truthfulness, in the sense that we act out fully our objections to his violating our rights). We put upon him two pressures—the pressure of our defiance of him and the pressure of our respect for his life—and it happens that in combination these two pressures are uniquely effective.”   – Barbara Deming