We Are Power: How Nonviolent Activism Changes the World with Todd Hasak-Lowy [IEP 134]
Todd Hasak-Lowy joins Amanda and Vickie for a conversation about nonviolent activism, in light of the current protests going on around the country.
Listen in to this eye-opening conversation on how monumental change takes place!
Todd Hasak-Lowy is an author and Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He lives in Evanston, Illinois (just outside Chicago), with his wife, two daughters, a dog, and two cats.
His latest book for the younger crowd is We Are Power: How Nonviolent Activism Changes the World.
Show Highlights:
- Todd shares the unorthodox story of how his latest book came about.
- Todd explains the meanings of “the moment of the whirlwind” and “the trigger event”.
- The role that media plays in protests.
- How and why public opinion has shifted in favor of protestors.
- The book, We Are Power: How Nonviolent Activism Changes the World, addresses how to make monumental change, although it isn’t always easy.
- Nonviolent activism and nonviolent direct action are forms of conflict.
- Ghandi understood that change can come from a third way. It is not submitting and it is not fighting with arms. There is a middle space that when entered, accesses something very disruptive and impactful.
- When we have order, everybody else has agreed to consciously or unconsciously to obey, but we always have the potential to not obey. When many of us refuse to obey, we reclaim power.
- The role of created conflict chaos in today’s effective movements and how this forces authority to respond.
- It’s one thing to understand that if we all resist, we have power, but the harder question to answer is, “Now that we have that power, what are we going to do with it”.
Links/Resources:
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Connect with Todd!
Todd can bring We Are Power to the classroom and teach students to rethink the relationship between power, violence, and change. He is available for School Visits, discussions via Skype, library talks, and more!
Books Mentioned:
We Are Power: How Nonviolent Activism Changes the World by Todd Hasak-Low
This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century by Mark Engler and Paul Engler
Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict by Joan Valerie Bondurant