Editing Nonviolence (section)

===Pragmatic===
The fundamental concept of ''pragmatic'' (''tactical'' or ''strategic'') nonviolent action is to create a social dynamic or political movement that can project a national and global dialogue that affects social change without necessarily winning over those who wish to maintain the status quo.<ref name="CRMV">{{Cite web |url=http://www.crmvet.org/info/nvpower.htm |title=Nonviolent Resistance & Political Power |work=Civil Rights Movement Archive (U.S.)}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224195459/http://www.crmvet.org/info/nvpower.htm |date=2021-02-24 }}</ref> [[Gene Sharp]] promoted the pragmatic nonviolence approach. Sharp was an American political scientist known for his nonviolent struggle work. Those who follow Sharp's pragmatic nonviolence approach believe in practicality rather than the moral aspect of the struggle. They believe that violence is too costly to engage in. The goals are to change their oppressor's behavior; end a specific injustice or violent situation; and seek a win for themselves, while opponents they perceive as enemies with conflicting interests should lose.<ref name=":0" /> Conflict is seen as inevitable, and the rejection of violence is an effective way to challenge power.<ref name=":1" /> Those who follow pragmatic nonviolence ideology are willing to engage in nonviolent coercion, and try to avoid suffering.<ref name=":0"/>

[[Nicolas Walter]] noted the idea that nonviolence might work "runs under the surface of Western political thought without ever quite disappearing".<ref name="nw">Nicolas Walter, "Non-Violent Resistance:Men Against War". Reprinted
in Nicolas Walter, ''Damned Fools in Utopia'' edited by [[David Goodway]]. PM Press 2010.
{{ISBN|160486222X}} (pp. 37-78).</ref> Walter noted [[Étienne de La Boétie]]'s ''[[Discourse on Voluntary Servitude]]'' (sixteenth century) and [[Percy Bysshe Shelley|P.B. Shelley's]] ''[[The Masque of Anarchy]]'' (1819) contain arguments for resisting tyranny without using violence.<ref name="nw" /> In 1838, [[William Lloyd Garrison]] helped found the [[Non-Resistance Society|New England Non-Resistance Society]], a society devoted to achieving racial and gender equality through the rejection of all violent actions.<ref name="nw" />

In modern industrial democracies, nonviolent action has been used extensively by political sectors without mainstream political power such as labor, peace, environment and women's movements. Lesser known is the role that nonviolent action has played and continues to play in undermining the power of repressive political regimes in the developing world and the former eastern bloc. Susan Ives emphasizes this point by quoting [[Walter Wink]]: {{Quotation|"In 1989, thirteen nations comprising 1,695,000,000 people experienced nonviolent revolutions that succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations ... If we add all the countries touched by major nonviolent actions in our century (the Philippines, South Africa ... the independence movement in India ...), the figure reaches 3,337,400,000, a staggering 65% of humanity! All this in the teeth of the assertion, endlessly repeated, that nonviolence doesn't work in the 'real' world."|Walter Wink|Christian theologian<ref name=Ives2001/>}}

As a technique for social struggle, nonviolent action has been described as "the politics of ordinary people", reflecting its historically mass-based use by populations throughout the world and history.

Movements most often associated with nonviolence are the [[Non-cooperation movement (1909–22)|non-cooperation campaign]] for [[Indian independence movement|Indian independence]] led by [[Mahatma Gandhi]], the [[Civil Rights Movement]] in the [[United States]], and the [[People Power Revolution]] in the [[Philippines]].

Also of primary significance is the notion that just means are the most likely to lead to just ends. When Gandhi said that "the means may be likened to the seed, the end to a tree," he expressed the philosophical kernel of what some refer to as ''[[prefigurative politics]]''. Martin Luther King Jr., a student of Gandhian nonviolent resistance, concurred with this tenet, concluding that "nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek." Proponents of nonviolence reason that the actions taken in the present inevitably re-shape the social order in like form. They would argue, for instance, that it is fundamentally irrational to use violence to achieve a peaceful society.

[[File:Gandhi at Dandi 5 April 1930.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|Gandhi famously advocated for the [[Indian independence movement]] to strictly adhere to the principles of nonviolence.]]

Respect or love for opponents also has a pragmatic justification, in that the technique of separating the deeds from the doers allows for the possibility of the doers changing their behaviour, and perhaps their beliefs. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, "Nonviolent resistance... avoids not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. The nonviolent resister not only refuses to shoot his opponent, but he also refuses to hate him."<ref name="Jr.2010">{{cite book |first=Martin Luther Jr. |last=King |author-link=Martin Luther King Jr.|title=Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vnJ1NY5mbXEC&pg=PT114|publisher=Beacon Press|isbn=978-0-8070-0070-0|page=114|date=2010-01-01}}</ref>

Nonviolence has obtained a level of institutional recognition and endorsement at the global level. On November 10, 1998, the [[United Nations]] General Assembly proclaimed the first decade of the 21st century and the third millennium, the years 2001 to 2010, as the International [[Decade for the Promotion of a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World]].