Perhaps nonviolence requires a certain leave-taking from reality: Judith Butler on Non-violence
Poster design by Jesse Turri
”Indeed, when the world presents as a force field of violence, the task of nonviolence is to find ways of living and acting in that world such that violence is checked or ameliorated, or its direction turned, precisely at moments when it seems to saturate that world and offer no way out. The body can be the vector of that turn, but so too can discourse, collective practices, infrastructures, and institutions. In response to the objection that a position in favor on nonviolence is simply unrealistic, this argument maintains that nonviolence requires a critique of what counts as reality, and it affirms the power and necessity of counter-realism in times like these. Perhaps nonviolence requires a certain leave-taking from reality as it is currently constituted, laying open the possibilities that belong to a newer political imaginary.”
I’m really loving the above passage from the intro of Judith Butler’s book, The Force of Nonviolence, which seems to indicate that nonviolence, as a posture, requires one to use their imagination and engage in creative problem solving in order to navigate conflicts. Accordingly, I’ve often had the thought that physical violence is a very uninspired and banal way to solve problems. I mean I have to be honest: the suggestion of killing people to solve problems strikes me as so effortless and narrowly parochial that it gives me a fucking headache. I’ve gone on the record multiple times before advocating that, perhaps with some divergent thinking and a little imagination, anything could be possible.
Additionally, in the intro of the book Butler indicates that “an ethics of nonviolence cannot be predicated on individualism, and it must take the lead in waging a critique of individualism as the basis of ethics and politics alike.” This is good shit. As a process-relational panentheist who is influenced by Rosemontian-style Confucian thought, I’m here for it!
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