Can Gandhi's non-violence work? Part 2

In my post yesterday I tried to find a defensible and reasonable interpretation of Gandhi's doctrine of non-violence, specifically in the most extreme circumstances. I mentioned that I think Gandhi was getting at two points that are often overlooked by his critics, and went into a bit of detail about the first. Today, I'd like to look at the second.

In addition to positing that an oppressive people would always be moved by a virtuous, resistant and non-violent victim, I think Gandhi was also getting at a much more Buddhist/Hinduist benefit to heroic, active non-violence. I group these two traditions because I think that in the context of the following discussion, they basically say the same thing.

Here is another quote from Gandhi about the advantages of using non-violence during the holocaust. "If the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the God-fearing, death has no terror."

The idea Gandhi is getting at is that the length of life (and death itself) does not matter compared to the quality of life. And the quality of life is all about inner spiritual life. A person's satisfaction with his or her own mind and life is flawless when that person behaves with virtue, in accordance with a set of predetermined principles. The idea is really very simple, but I think it is very difficult for us to accept today. After all, I think most of us, myself very much included, would do just about anything to extend the length of our lives (especially if we found out we were dying), but comparatively few of us concern ourselves with whether we are really living in accordance with the principles we think are good, noble and virtuous.

What I find so interesting about this idea is that there is no good way to really argue for it. Whether quality or length of life is more important seems like such a foundational preference -- a premise for many other conclusions and behaviours, but not a consequence of any sort of reasoning itself. The only argument I can think of making in favor of Gandhi's approach is that the Quality view would likely promote greater happiness than the Quantity view. But this is already presupposing that happiness (associated with quality) is more important than quantity, which is really presupposing Gandhi's position in the first place. The logic becomes circular, but I don't see any other way to justify either view yet.

Even if I don't know how to justify which view is "better" (if any), though, it definitely seems to me that Gandhi's view is plausible and shouldn't be dismissed out of hand, even if it's pretty foreign to the way most of us "modern Westerners" seem to think these days.