“An eye for an eye, and soon the whole world is blind.”

“An eye for an eye, and soon the whole world is blind.” That’s a phrase that was powerfully invoked by Mahatma Gandhi, a man who helped change the direction and structure of a large and important nation. Another man who helped change an entire country for the better, Martin Luther King Jr., referenced this quote and lived its meaning:

The reason I can’ t follow the old eye-for-an-eye philosophy is that it ends up leaving everyone blind. Somebody must have sense and somebody must have religion. I remember some years ago, my brother and I were driving from Atlanta to Chattanooga, Tennessee. And for some reason the drivers that night were very discourteous or they were forgetting to dim their lights…And finally A.D. looked over at me and he said, ‘I’m tired of this now, and the next car that comes by here and refuses to dim the lights, I’m going to refuse to dim mine.’ I said, ‘Wait a minute, don’t do that. Somebody has to have some sense on this highway.’ And I’m saying the same thing for us here in Birmingham. We are moving up a mighty highway toward the city of Freedom. There will be meandering points. There will be curves and difficult moments, and we will be tempted to retaliate with the same kind of force that the opposition will use. But I’m going to say to you, ‘Wait a minute, Birmingham. Somebody’s got to have some sense in Birmingham.’

—Martin Luther King, Jr., 3 May 1963

I offer this in lieu of a firebreathing post about events leading up to the resignation of feminist bloggers Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, which you can read about here and here and here and here, among other places.

I thought about Gandhi when I read these disturbing words at Shakespeare’s Sister:

There will be some who clamor to claim victory for my resignation, but I caution them that in doing so, they are tacitly accepting responsibility for those who have deluged my blog and my inbox with vitriol and veiled threats. It is not right-wing bloggers, nor people like Bill Donohue or Bill O’Reilly, who prompted nor deserve credit for my resignation, no matter how much they want it, but individuals who used public criticisms of me as an excuse to unleash frightening ugliness, the likes of which anyone with a modicum of respect for responsible discourse would denounce without hesitation.

This behavior, whether by those on the right, those on the left, or those who seem to enjoy stirring up trouble without bothering to exhibit anything in the way of a sincerely held ideological framework, regardless of where it is directed, needs to be resoundingly denounced and abhored. Turning the other cheek, only to have that one slapped as well, is really difficult, and the quelling the desire for revenge against those who publicly stoke those evil fires is harder still, but it’s the only path to peace, inside or out, in the blogosphere or in real life.

Here’s another Gandhi quote that I treasure: “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.” Amanda and Melissa will win and win big if they continue to stick to the issues, and refuse to sink to the despicable level of their tormentors. I’m very, very proud of them so far. They are great role models for the rest of us.

–Ann Bartow