The preceding chapters analyzed violence as an extreme mechanism of coercive convergence, but that does not entail that "all order is ultimately guaranteed by violence." Power also depends on continuing cooperation from implementers, workers, professional institutions, local networks, and ordinary participants. When those relationships are withdrawn, even a center that possesses weapons may lose practical capacity. Nonviolent resistance is therefore not a moral exception outside the logical loop, but a test of one of its premises: the capacity for convergence that appears monopolized at the center is actually distributed among subjects who can refuse, delay, turn away, or defect.
So does a third path exist? Is there a form of resistance that can effectively challenge oppressive order without replicating its logic of violence?
History, in its most dramatic fashion, offers us an answer full of inspiration and controversy. This answer is found in the gaunt figure of Gandhi, leader of the Indian independence movement; in the resonant oratory of Martin Luther King Jr., leader of the American civil rights movement; in the courage of countless ordinary people who peacefully faced batons, police dogs, and high-pressure water hoses with their own flesh and blood. This answer is "nonviolent resistance."
In traditional conceptions of power, "nonviolent resistance" is often misunderstood as a passive, negative, even weak form of "non-cooperation." It seems merely a moral posture, whose success depends entirely on the oppressor's "awakening of conscience." This chapter, however, will propose a diametrically opposite thesis: a well-organized nonviolent resistance is by no means an avoidance of violence, but a more active, more subtle, and more subversive form of power struggle. It does not abandon battle, but tactfully shifts the battlefield from a direct confrontation of "physical force" to a more fundamental arena that determines the very legitimacy of physical force -- the battlefield of "observation."
Nonviolent resistance is a "high-stakes observational war" aimed at competing for the power to define "events," reconstructing the coordinates of "morality," and ultimately dismantling the legitimacy foundation of the opponent's "observational consensus."
The task of this chapter is to use the theoretical framework of this book to dismantle the precise tactics of this "observational war." First, "The Body as Battlefield: Reconstructing the Observational Perspective by Bearing Violence" will analyze the most central and counterintuitive strategy of nonviolent resistance -- actively and disciplinedly "bearing" violence -- and explore how this action can dramatically change the "meaning" of the violent event itself.
Next, we examine how third-party witness can change public opinion, legitimacy, and flows of resources, while preserving more direct mechanisms: expanding and sustaining participation, shifting the administrative and social pillars on which rule depends, raising the cost of repression, and building the capacity to take over cooperation. Third parties are not naturally neutral, nor are they always able to see or intervene. The success or failure of nonviolent action cannot be compressed into a single media event of "awakening."
Then, we will explore its specific tactical techniques. "'Moral Jujitsu': Using the Dominant Group's Rules to Counter Its Violence" will analyze how nonviolent resistance, like a master of "jujitsu," deftly uses the laws, morality, and values that the oppressor itself professes (i.e., its "observational consensus") to make the oppressor's own violent actions appear "illegal" and "immoral," thereby trapping it in a dilemma of self-contradiction.
Finally, we will also calmly examine the fragile boundaries of this strategy. "The Limits of the Observational War: When the Third-Party Observer Is Absent or Silent" will explore under what conditions this "observational war" ends in failure. This will help us understand that the success of nonviolent resistance is not a universal, all-purpose panacea, but requires a series of stringent social and political preconditions.
The Body as Battlefield: Reconstructing the Observational Perspective by Bearing Violence
In a conventional violent conflict, the logic of both sides is perfectly symmetrical: both attempt to destroy the other's will and capacity to resist by inflicting more effective physical harm on the other's body. Within this logical framework, the balance of strength is the sole determinant of victory.
The genius of nonviolent resistance lies in its refusal to enter this "physical force" battlefield set by the oppressor -- a battlefield absolutely favorable to the oppressor. Through a seemingly "self-harming," survival-instinct-defying action -- actively, disciplinedly, and openly bearing violence rather than inflicting it -- it unilaterally and dramatically changes the entire nature of the conflict.
It transforms the struggle from a contest of "who has the harder fist" into a moral and symbolic contest of "whose pain better reveals the truth." On this entirely new battlefield, the resister's body is no longer a "weakness" to be protected, but becomes the most powerful "weapon."
The Short-Circuiting and Reconstruction of the "Meaning" of Violence
We have argued in previous chapters that the "legitimate violence" imposed by the state or ruling group is effective not only because of its physical coercive force, but also because it is typically wrapped in a discourse of "legitimacy." When the police suppress a "riot," their action is "observed" as "maintaining public order"; when the military shoots "rebels," it is "observed" as "defending national unity." This framework of "meaning" provides justification for violence, allowing perpetrators to act with a clear conscience and bystanders to accept it calmly.
Nonviolent resisters, through the action of "bearing but not resisting," cause this "meaning" framework to undergo a dramatic "short-circuit."
A Scene from the Salt March: In 1930, during Gandhi's "Salt March," thousands of Indian volunteers peacefully approached the salt pans monopolized by the British colonial government. They were unarmed, simply walking quietly in orderly lines. What greeted them was the brutal beating by police wielding iron-tipped lathi sticks. American journalist Webb Miller recorded the scene: "They came on in waves, not one of them raising an arm to ward off the blows. They went down like tenpins... I heard the sickening thud of clubs on unprotected skulls... A groan, mixed with sympathy and anger, rose from the crowd."
A Scene from the Selma March: In 1965, in Selma, Alabama, to fight for Black voting rights, Martin Luther King Jr. organized a peaceful march from Selma to Montgomery. When the marchers reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were brutally suppressed by state troopers. Police on horseback, wielding batons and releasing tear gas, charged into the peacefully praying, arm-linked Black crowd. These bloody images, broadcast via television news, entered the living rooms of tens of millions of American families.
In these two classic scenes, what happened?
The oppressor's violence still achieved a physical "victory." The unarmed resisters were bloodied, dispersed, arrested. Yet at the level of "meaning," the oppressor suffered a disastrous defeat.
Because when violence faces not another resisting violence, but a peaceful, defenseless, even praying body, its original "legitimacy" discourse instantly fails.
You cannot "observe" a person quietly walking toward a salt pan as a "rioter" threatening public order.
You cannot "observe" a Black woman praying on her knees as a "dangerous element" requiring mounted police to charge into.
When the target of violence refuses to appear as an "enemy," violence itself strips away all the camouflage of "law enforcement" and "stability maintenance," exposing its most naked, ugliest, and most unjustifiable essence: the strong bullying the weak.
The Body as a Medium of "Truth"
The body of the nonviolent resister, here, becomes a powerful "meaning converter." By bearing suffering, it accomplishes a profound "re-observation":
- It transforms abstract "injustice" into visible "harm": Before the Selma march, for many Northern whites, Southern segregation and voting rights deprivation were merely a distant, abstract "political issue." But when they saw on television, with their own eyes, a fellow American citizen, merely for peacefully seeking a constitutional right, beaten bloody, that abstract "injustice" instantly transformed into a concrete, palpable, shocking "harm." The resister's body became the most eloquent "evidence" indicting the entire unjust system.
- It reshapes the perpetrator, from "guardian of order" to "moral debtor": In a symmetrical violent conflict, both sides suffer casualties, and bystanders find it difficult to make simple moral judgments. But in an asymmetric scene, the image of the police officer or soldier wielding weapons against peaceful civilians is transformed from a "cog in the state machine" into a specific "individual" responsible for his own brutal behavior. His moral standing is reversed. He is no longer an embodiment of justice, but a "bully" exploiting his power.
- It elevates the resister, from "disturber of order" to "martyr sacrificing for belief": A person willing, for a belief, to bear great suffering or even death -- the action itself possesses a powerful moral charisma. Gandhi's fasts, the Black students in the American civil rights movement who sat at white-only lunch counters silently enduring humiliation and beatings -- their bodies, while bearing suffering, also declared to the world: the belief we pursue is so precious that we are willing to pay the price of our lives for it. This posture of "martyrdom" elevates their resistance from a mere "political protest" to a "moral witness" with a sacred aura.
The Crucial Role of "Discipline"
It is worth noting that the success of this strategy of "reconstructing the observational perspective by bearing violence" depends critically on extremely high "discipline."
Both Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. spent enormous time and energy training their followers to be able, in the face of the most brutal provocation and violence, to "return no blow for a blow, return no curse for a curse." For if a single resister, out of anger or fear, retaliates with violence, the entire layout of the "observational war" is instantly destroyed.
Once the resisters also use violence, the oppressor can immediately reclaim the power to define the "event." They seize on this individual instance of "violence" and amplify it into the essence of the entire movement, declaring to bystanders: "See, they are not peaceful protesters; they are a gang of thugs trying to create chaos. Our use of force is completely justified, a necessary act of self-defense."
Therefore, the "discipline" of nonviolent resistance is a "combat discipline" of the highest order. It requires participants to overcome the most primitive human "fight or flight" instinct, to adhere to the core tactic of "nonviolence" with an almost superhuman willpower. Only in this way can they ensure that their bodies remain a pure "moral medium" capable of maximally revealing the "unjustness" of the other side's violence.
Through this method, nonviolent resistance, from the very first moment of battle, wins the initiative at the "symbolic" level. It subtly positions its body as a "moral trap." The oppressor falls into a dilemmatic predicament: if they do not use violence, the resisters' actions (such as marches, sit-ins) will continue, and their political demands will be more widely disseminated; if they do use violence, they fall right into the resisters' trap, portraying themselves as brutal, unjust oppressors.
Yet who needs to see this "oppressor image" for it to be ultimately transformed into real political victory? This leads us to the true decisive ground of this "observational war" -- the heart of the third-party observer.
Awakening the Third Party: Public Opinion, Media, and the Shift of "Conceptual Consensus"
A high-stakes "observational war" does not have as its direct interlocutor the police officer with the baton standing before you. Because in the vast majority of cases, that specific perpetrator is merely a cog executing orders, formatted by ideology. It is difficult to "move" him and make him lay down his weapons by bearing beatings.
The true target audience of nonviolent resistance is the broader "third-party observer" who is not present at the scene of conflict. This "third party" may include:
- The majority of the domestic public, originally neutral or silent.
- Domestic political, economic, and cultural elites who have not yet taken a stance.
- The international community, including the governments, media, and citizens of other countries.
The ultimate victory of nonviolent resistance almost always depends on whether it can successfully transform this "drama of the body" into a "media event" that can be effectively disseminated, thereby "awakening" these third-party observers, winning their sympathy and support, and ultimately, at the level of the macro "conceptual consensus" of the entire society, forming overwhelming political and moral pressure on the oppressor.
Media: The Amplifier and Megaphone of the "Observational War"
If the resister's body is the "stage," then "media" is the "camera" and "megaphone" that broadcasts this stage play from a local event to the nation and the world.
From "Invisible" to "Visible": Before the advent of modern media (especially newspapers, radio, and television), local oppression of minority groups could easily be covered up by rulers. Most people, because they could not "see," could not perceive its injustice. The appearance of media fundamentally changed this. Webb Miller's reporting on the "Salt March," transmitted by telegraph, quickly spread worldwide, allowing countless Americans and Europeans to "see" for the first time the cruelty of British imperial rule. Similarly, the enormous success of the American civil rights movement was inseparable from the spread of television. When Northern white families, at dinner time, saw with their own eyes Southern police using attack dogs and fire hoses against Black youths who just wanted a cup of coffee, they could no longer maintain a detached "silence" about Southern segregation.
Emotional Resonance and Moral Intervention: What media disseminates is not just "information," but "emotion." A shocking news photograph, a bloody television video -- the "emotional resonance" they can evoke far exceeds that of any rational analytical article. They can pierce through people's daily indifference and numbness, directly touching their most basic moral intuition -- sympathy for the weak, disgust for cruelty. This aroused "moral emotion" is a powerful force motivating the originally neutral third party to begin "intervening" in the conflict. They write to their congressmen, join supporting marches, boycott goods from the oppressive side, and vote for politicians who promise change.
Aware of this crucial role of media, modern nonviolent resistance movements are extremely skilled at "media operations." They consciously design their resistance actions as "performance art" capable of attracting media attention and full of visual impact. Gandhi's image in homespun cloth and with a bamboo staff was itself a carefully designed, powerful communication symbol. Martin Luther King Jr.'s every large-scale march was pre-announced to major media, with locations chosen to maximize the potential for dramatic conflict. They knew well that the victory of battle lay not in whether that bridge could be successfully crossed, but in whether the violent conflict that occurred while crossing it could be successfully filmed and disseminated.
The Shift of "Conceptual Consensus": The Disintegration of the Oppressor's Legitimacy
When these "media events" full of moral impact are widely disseminated, they begin to pry apart the deeper "conceptual consensus" of the entire society -- that which concerns "what is just" and "what is legitimate."
Splitting the Opponent's Camp: The oppressive group is not monolithic. Within it, there are also varying degrees of "hardliners" and "moderates." The "moral advantage" demonstrated by nonviolent resistance greatly strengthens the voice of the "moderates." They begin to question whether the hardliners' bloody suppression "damages the nation's international image" and whether it will "provoke greater resistance that outweighs the benefits." For example, in India, many British politicians and intellectuals, after seeing the moral force of Gandhi's movement, began to publicly criticize the colonial government's atrocities and advocate for greater autonomy for India. This internal split greatly weakens the oppressor's ability to act in unison.
Stripping Violence of its "Justification" Garb: A stable oppressive order needs to find a set of "justifying" narratives for its violence that can be accepted by society. Nonviolent resistance, by awakening the third party, makes this narrative increasingly difficult to sustain. When nationwide public opinion begins to view Southern segregation as a "national shame," a "barbaric" system running counter to the values of "freedom and democracy" that America professes, the Southern racists find themselves in a "discursive" isolation. They still possess police and law, but they are losing the "moral capital" to defend these instruments of violence. The federal government, under overwhelming domestic and international public pressure, ultimately had no choice but to deploy federal troops to forcefully enforce the mandate of "racial integration." At this point, state violence -- this double-edged sword -- was turned back against the old oppressors themselves.
Elevating the Resister's "Legitimacy" Status: Meanwhile, the resisters, in this process, complete the "legitimation" and "heroization" of their identity. They are no longer "troublemakers" in the government's narrative, but "freedom fighters" and "moral heroes" in the eyes of national public opinion. Martin Luther King Jr.'s receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize was itself a powerful symbolic event. It marked that his "observation" had successfully risen from a marginal "divergence" to a "new observation" recognized by the international community and possessing high moral legitimacy.
Through this chain of reactions, a struggle with an originally extremely imbalanced power balance undergoes a dramatic tilt. The resisters may still be weak in "physical strength," but at the level of "conceptual strength" or what we might call "symbolic capital," they have already come from behind to occupy an overwhelming advantage.
When a regime's rule is left with only naked violence, stripped of all "conceptual consensus" support, it has already become a "hollow" volcano; its collapse is merely a matter of time and ignition.
This is the full power of the tactic of "awakening the third party." It is a true war of "attacking the mind rather than the body." It does not seek to defeat the opponent's body, but to win the hearts of the bystanders. It understands deeply that in an interconnected modern society, no power can long endure, sustained solely by violence, having completely lost its moral and conceptual legitimacy.
Yet winning the hearts of bystanders requires more than just "displaying suffering." It also requires a more subtle art of being able to "checkmate" the opponent on their own board. This is the art of "moral jujitsu."
"Moral Jujitsu": Using the Dominant Group's Rules to Counter Its Violence
"Jujitsu" is a martial art of overcoming the strong with the weak. Its essence lies not in using one's own strength to clash head-on with the strong, but in skillfully using the strong's own strength and movements to throw them off balance and ultimately subdue them.
Nonviolent resistance, at the tactical level, is a high-stakes "moral jujitsu." It does not attempt to establish a completely new, revolutionary moral system, but instead keenly seizes the "official observational consensus" that the oppressor openly professes and promises (such as laws, constitutions, religious doctrines, values), and uses a "pedantic," embodied approach to test the truthfulness of these "rules," thereby placing the oppressor in the awkward position of either "following their own rules (thus benefiting the resisters)" or "violating their own rules (thus exposing their hypocrisy)."
Turning "Text" into "Action," "Promise" into "Test"
Any ruling group, to maintain the legitimacy of its rule, invariably propagates a set of "good-sounding" official values. For example:
- The British Empire professed itself to be a disseminator of "rule of law" and "civilization."
- The American government enshrined "all men are created equal" and the rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" in its Declaration of Independence.
- The white racist regime in South Africa also claimed its rule was based on "Christian" values.
In everyday circumstances, the vast gap between these "official observational consensuses" and the oppressive "reality of rule" is tacitly accepted or ignored by the majority. It is a collective "hypocrisy."
The "moral jujitsu" of nonviolent resisters is to use a series of carefully designed "dramatic actions" to forcibly break this "hypocrisy," transforming the sleeping "rule text" written on paper into a living, tension-filled "test site."
Gandhi's "Civil Disobedience": When Gandhi publicly led the people to make salt, he was not calling for an anarchist uprising. His action had an extremely subtle "legal logic" behind it. What he was challenging was the Salt Act promulgated by the British colonial government, which prohibited Indians from producing and selling salt on their own. He was asking a question: "You British, who claim to be the champions of 'rule of law' -- is a law that serves only your economic monopoly interests while harming the basic survival rights of hundreds of millions of Indians a 'good law' or an 'evil law' that should be resisted?" His action forced the British to confront the internal contradiction within their own promise of "rule of law."
The Civil Rights Movement's "Sit-ins": When Black students calmly walked into a restaurant that served only white patrons and sat at the counter requesting service, they too were practicing "moral jujitsu." They were using their bodies to test whether the "equal protection" clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was truly effective in reality. If restaurant owners and police wanted to expel or arrest them, they would have to openly, in full view of the public, violate the principle of "equality" promised by the U.S. Constitution. Their action transformed an abstract "legal principle" into a concrete "situational choice" full of moral tension, presenting this dilemma to their oppressors.
Archbishop Tutu's "Bible": In the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu often led the people, when facing police suppression, to collectively pray and sing hymns. His weapon was the very Bible the white rulers claimed to believe in. He was asking: "You who call yourselves 'Christians' -- when you beat us, your brothers and sisters praying to the same God, with your batons, does your action conform to the teaching of 'love your neighbor' that you profess?" He deftly transformed the struggle from a "racial conflict" into a "crisis of faith" within the white ruling class itself.
Creating the Dilemma of "Rule Conflict"
Through this "moral jujitsu," nonviolent resisters successfully create for their opponents a no-win "rule conflict" dilemma.
- Conflict Between Legal Rules and Moral Rules: A police officer ordered to suppress a "sit-in" finds himself caught between two conflicting sets of rules. On one hand, according to the South's "segregation laws," his "duty" is to arrest these Black students. On the other hand, according to the (even if hypocritical) civic moral education of "all men are equal" he received growing up, and his basic conscience, he may vaguely feel that these students have done nothing wrong. This internal "rule conflict" creates moral hesitation, confusion, even guilt in the executor of violence.
- Conflict Between Lower-Level and Higher-Level Law: A Southern local judge, trying these "sit-in" students, also faces a conflict between "lower-level law" (local segregation ordinances) and "higher-level law" (the U.S. federal constitution). The action of the nonviolent resisters publicizes the "contradiction" within the legal system itself, ultimately forcing higher-level federal courts to make a ruling, clarifying which "rule" is truly effective.
- Conflict Between Words and Deeds: A government professing "freedom and democracy," suppressing a peaceful petition before the world's media. Its "deeds" stand in glaring contradiction to its professed "words." This inconsistency greatly damages its ruling "soft power" and "international credibility." To save face, it sometimes has no choice but to make concessions.
The entire essence of "moral jujitsu" lies in "using the opponent's own spear to attack their shield." It does not argue with the oppressor about "which value system is better," but says: "Very well, I fully accept your value system. Now, please prove through your actions that you genuinely, not hypocritically, believe in all this that you yourself profess."
This tactic is extremely effective because it deftly shifts the responsibility for "change" from the resisters to the oppressor. It is no longer the weak "begging" for the strong's charity, but the weak "demanding" that the strong honor their own promises. It packages what appears to be a "subversive" movement as a movement to "defend" true rule of law and morality, thereby winning for itself the broadest, most indisputable legitimacy.
Yet, just as jujitsu requires an opponent who follows basic physical laws, the success of "moral jujitsu" also requires the opponent to be willing, at least nominally, to play this game of "rules." What if the opponent completely tears off all civilized veils, becoming a "pure violent entity" that follows no rules and cares for no moral sensibilities?
This brings us to the darkest boundary of this "observational war."
The Limits of the Observational War: When the Third-Party Observer Is Absent or Silent
Nonviolent resistance -- this "observational war" aimed at winning the hearts of "third-party observers" -- has all its exquisite design built upon a crucial, yet often overlooked, premise: there must exist a "third-party observer" who can be "awakened" and whose attitude is sufficient to influence the outcome of the conflict.
When this premise no longer holds, nonviolent resistance can degenerate from a high-stakes "moral jujitsu" into a silent, meaningless "collective suicide." The suffering borne will no longer be "symbolic capital" capable of revealing truth and shifting perceptions, but will merely regress into pure physical injury, forgotten by history.
The failure of the "observational war" typically occurs in the following situations.
Situation One: Complete Information Isolation -- When the "Camera" Is Smashed
Nonviolent resistance is highly dependent on disseminating its "drama of the body" to a broader audience through "media." If an oppressive regime possesses an absolute monopoly over channels of information dissemination, capable of effectively preventing any images and sounds unfavorable to its rule from escaping, then the "observational war" loses the "battlefield" on which it depends from the very beginning.
Comprehensive Censorship and Blockade: An efficient totalitarian state can establish a tight network firewall, media censorship system, and offline surveillance network. It can ensure that a brutal suppression of a minority group occurring in a remote area receives no coverage in mainstream domestic media. Any individual attempting to disseminate the truth through social media faces swift deletion, account suspension, and even arrest.
Monopoly on "Official Narrative": After isolating all "alternative observations," the regime can, unchallenged, instill in its people a set of "official narratives" entirely defined by itself. In this narrative, peaceful resisters can be easily "re-observed" and "re-labeled" as "terrorists manipulated by foreign forces," "subversive elements attempting to split the country." Unable to access any contrary information, most people genuinely believe this "official narrative" and thus transform from potential "sympathizers" into "supporters" of the crackdown.
In this situation, the suffering of nonviolent resisters becomes a tragedy occurring in a "sealed room." Their blood cannot splash beyond the walls to awaken anyone's conscience. Their bodies lose their function as a "moral medium."
Situation Two: The "Indifference" or "Complicity" of the Third-Party Observer
Even if information is disseminated, it does not mean the "third-party observer" will necessarily be "awakened." In some cases, they may choose to remain "silent" or "indifferent" due to their own interests, biases, or fears.
The "Complicity" of the Domestic Mainstream Public: In a society with deep ethnic divisions, if the oppressed are a long-stigmatized and marginalized "minority group," even if the mainstream group sees the violence inflicted on them, they may not feel sympathy, but rather think it "well-deserved." For example, in some countries, discrimination and violence against the Roma (Gypsies) rarely arouses widespread outrage in mainstream society, because long-standing "discursive hegemony" has successfully "observed" this group as "lazy," "unclean," and "useless to society."
"Geopolitical" Considerations of the International Community: The international community is not a pure "moral arbiter" either. Other governments, when deciding whether to condemn or intervene in an oppressive regime's actions, prioritize their own "national interests." If this oppressive regime is an important trading partner, a key geopolitical ally, or possesses nuclear weapons, other countries are likely to adopt a policy of appeasement, "turning a blind eye" to its "human rights issues." At this point, the pressure of international opinion becomes weak and ineffectual.
When third-party observers, for various reasons, refuse to play the role of "impartial judge," the "observational war" loses its most important "audience" and "arbiter."
Situation Three: The Opponent's "Absence of Bottom Line" -- When the Oppressor Completely Abandons "Rules"
The tactic of "moral jujitsu" presupposes that the opponent at least still cares about "face," still cares about maintaining the consistency of its "rules" and "rhetoric." However, when an oppressor's legitimacy of rule no longer depends on any "conceptual consensus" but solely on naked violent deterrence, this game can no longer be played.
The Logic of "Genocide": The Nazi Holocaust of the Jews is an extreme case of the complete failure of the "observational war." Nazi ideology had, from the very beginning, "re-observed" and "re-labeled" Jews as a "virus" or "pest" that must be eliminated from human society. Within this "biological" rather than "political" framework of "observation," any degree of violence against Jews required no moral justification whatsoever. Nonviolent resistance is meaningless against an opponent whose aim is your "total annihilation." Your peace is seen only as weakness; your endurance is seen only as deserved.
"Indiscriminate" Suppression: When a regime is determined to maintain its rule at any cost, it may adopt an indiscriminate suppression strategy of "better to kill a thousand by mistake than let one escape." It no longer attempts to distinguish "peaceful protesters" from "violent rioters," but treats all "divergers" appearing on the streets as "enemies" to be eliminated. In such circumstances, the discipline of "nonviolence" loses its symbolic function of distinguishing friend from foe.
When the oppressor has completely abandoned all shared "observational consensuses" about "humanity," "morality," and "law," reducing violence to its purest "instrumental" attribute serving only physical elimination, the arena of the "observational war" collapses entirely. At this point, what resisters face is no longer an opponent that can be "checkmated" on a chessboard, but a "rock" smashing toward them, following no rules whatsoever.
Conclusion: Fragile Victories, Eternal Lessons
Through this analysis of the limits of the "observational war," we must acknowledge that nonviolent resistance is not a universally applicable, fail-safe broad road to liberation. Its success requires a series of extremely stringent, even "fortunate" historical conditions: an information environment not yet completely closed, the existence of a third-party observer capable of conscience and reflection, and an opponent not yet completely devoid of all rules and decency.
In many cases, these conditions do not exist. In the darkest corners of history, countless peaceful, courageous resistances have been cruelly crushed in silence.
Yet does this mean that the struggle of nonviolent resistance has lost its meaning?
Far from it.
On the contrary, precisely because we see its fragility and limitations, we can more deeply understand the greatness -- like a miracle -- of its success when it does occur. The victories of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. shine so brightly precisely because they proved that, at certain crucial historical moments, humanity can indeed, through the highest wisdom, the firmest will, and the greatest moral courage, temporarily break the karmic cycle of violence and vengeance.
The practice of the "observational war" offers us an eternal lesson: power is not a hard, immutable physical entity, but a fluid, fragile relationship dependent on "ideas" and "beliefs." Even under the most imbalanced balance of power, the weak always possess one final, most fundamental weapon -- the ability, through their own actions, to challenge and reconstruct the "world of meaning" that sustains the power of the strong.
This "game of observation" may fail most of the time. But as long as there are people who bravely, continuously attempt to play this game, the possibility of moving beyond a "consensus of violence" toward a more resilient, more humane "resilient consensus" will never be completely extinguished.
And how to construct such a "resilient consensus" is the ultimate question that the final chapter of this book will explore.