Michael Nagler is the founder and president of the Metta Center for Nonviolence, in Petaluma, California, which offers ‘Theory, Strategy, Support for a New Story’.

We asked Michael about the work of the Center and his own perspective on nonviolence. 

1) Is there a way to define nonviolence in a few words?

There are several, because nonviolence is a vast field and people tend to pick up one piece or another.

I like to define it as

the energy released when one overcomes a disruptive drive (primarily fear and anger).

Then I specify that by ‘overcome’ I don’t mean repress. Rather, as Martin Luther King Jr said, to ‘convert anger under discipline for maximum effect’.

Continue reading A new story for the 21st century: an interview with Michael Nagler