I had a similar reaction to Thoreau’s adulation of John Brown – I admired it, and Brown, but I found his use of violence to be extremely unpalatable. That being said, I think John Brown is a hero, as I think MLK is a hero and Gandhi is a hero. I spent much of Thursday’s class attempting to pin down how I could mentally group these three together. The best I could come up with is that the latter two used non-violence because (morality aside) it was the most effective route to their respective finish lines; the former used violence for the same reason. Violence, like non-violence is a tactic. I can only assume John Brown used violence because non-violence would or could not work, or because he viewed the pace at which the work of his fellow abolitionists was diffused (Walker’s Appeal, etc.) and found it unsatisfactory. From a pure political theory perspective, then, his decision was contextually rational, which offers a decent explanation for the effectiveness of his results (effective insofar as they spread international awareness and spurred political change).

-- AerinMiller - 01 Mar 2010