Gandhi on Rationality

Ghandi reminds me somewhat of Plato and Socrates in his take on reasoned argument being the best manner. Socrates used his Socratic method to prove that nobody knows anything by taking apart people’s beliefs through analysis of the minutia of their beliefs and the lack of certainty they have of the grey areas. “Since hyman beings are fallible and partial, each should make a sincere effort to look at the disputed subject from the other’s point of view” (64) Ghandi used this to mean that you should understand where the other person is coming from, while Socrates used this to find the weaknesses in the arguments which people felt were strong.
The difference here is that Socrates is focused on true knowledge, whereas Ghandi uses reason and debate for problem resolution. This demonstrates that Ghandi is the more moral person in the comparison. However, Ghandi realized that the biggest problem with reason is the same problem that Socrates faced: that people will not listen to it calmly and accept what you have to say. While Socrates was executed for people’s unwillingness to listen to him, Ghandi developed a new method of making people willing to step into each other’s shoes. Ghandi’s ‘soul-force’ is simple emotional blackmail used without violence. This makes it powerfully effective against most people, but it still does not work against the callous or the powerful when media is not watching. The weakness of this new method is it still requires someone who is pliable, though the only unpliable people are those who have little to no pity and do not have their supporters watching on TV or other media.