The Force of Nonviolence, Judith Butler
The Force of Nonviolence, Judith Butler
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The Force of Nonviolence
An Ethico-Political Bind

Author: Judith Butler

Narrator: Coleen Marlo

Unabridged: 5 hr 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 02/04/2020


Synopsis

Judith Butler's new book shows how an ethic of nonviolence must be connected to a broader political struggle for social equality. Further, it argues that nonviolence is often misunderstood as a passive practice, 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.

About Judith Butler

Judith Butler is Maxine Elliot Professor of Comparative Literature and Critical Theory at the University of California, Berkeley, and holds the Hannah Arendt Chair at the European Graduate School. She is the author of Gender Trouble, Precarious Life, Frames of War, and Towards a Performative Theory of Assembly.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Brandy on September 20, 2020

God, I hate psychoanalysis. If I had known so much of this book was pure psychoanalysis I would not have purchased it. That aside, exposure to things you dislike is, from time to time, good for you, so I read it. That does, of course, grant me the privilege of complaining about it. If you like psych......more

Goodreads review by Lula on October 10, 2022

Es durillo de leer, muchos conceptos en frases muy largas. A la vez, en vista de lo que sucede estos días en Irán, en Ucrania, en el mundo... es terrorífico. El capítulo de la ética y la política me ha costado mucho. Merece muchas más estrellas, pero personalmente no puedo ponerle más, como suele decir......more

Goodreads review by Danielle on July 08, 2024

phenomenal. A must read for students of political science and philosophy.......more

Goodreads review by Jessica on January 20, 2024

This is sooo incisive! Highly recommend to anyone who cares about being human. Radical equality must include equal grievability, all lives are grievable. A critique of self-defense: what is the self (me, my family, my people, my nation, etc) that is worthy of being violently defended, at the expanse o......more