The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind“The most creative and courageous social theorist working today” examines the ethical binds that emerge within the force field of violence (Cornel West). “ . . . nonviolence is often seen as passive and resolutely individual. Butler’s philosophical inquiry argues that it is in fact a shrewd and even aggressive collective political tactic.” —New York Times Judith Butler shows how an ethic of nonviolence must be connected to a broader political struggle for social equality. Further, she argues that nonviolence is often misunderstood as a passive practice that emanates from a calm region of the soul, or as an individualist ethical relation to existing forms of power. But, in fact, nonviolence is an ethical position found in the midst of the political field. An aggressive form of nonviolence accepts that hostility is part of our psychic constitution, but values ambivalence as a way of checking the conversion of aggression into violence. One contemporary challenge to a politics of nonviolence points out that there is a difference of opinion on what counts as violence and nonviolence. The distinction between them can be mobilized in the service of ratifying the state’s monopoly on violence. Considering nonviolence as an ethical problem within a political philosophy requires a critique of individualism as well as an understanding of the psychosocial dimensions of violence. Butler draws upon Foucault, Fanon, Freud, and Benjamin to consider how the interdiction against violence fails to include lives regarded as ungrievable. By considering how “racial phantasms” inform justifications of state and administrative violence, Butler tracks how violence is often attributed to those who are most severely exposed to its lethal effects. The struggle for nonviolence is found in movements for social transformation that reframe the grievability of lives in light of social equality and whose ethical claims follow from an insight into the interdependency of life as the basis of social and political equality. |
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action Adriana Cavarero aggression ambivalence becomes belong Benjamin biopolitical biopower body called claim conflict considered constituted Critique of Violence death drive debates dependency destroy destructive potential divine violence Einstein emerges equal grievability ethical and political Étienne Balibar Fanon fantasy force Foucault framework Frantz Fanon Freud global grieved human Ibid identify imaginary imagined individual inequality institutions interdependency Jacqueline Rose Jean-Jacques Rousseau Judith Butler justified killing Klein legal regime legal violence lives logic mania means melancholia Melanie Klein migrants mirror stage modes moral mourned murder one's oneself operates organic perhaps persistence phantasmagoria phantasy Pleasure Principle police politics of nonviolence populations position possible precarity precisely preserve psychic question racial racism resistance sadomasochism safeguarding scene schema seek self-defense sense sexual Sigmund Freud simply social bonds social relations solidarity structure super-ego tion tive understand ungrievable University Press violence and nonviolence vulnerability Walter Benjamin