On Resistance: A Philosophy of Defiance

by Howard Caygill

No word is more central to the contemporary political imagination and action than ‘resistance'. In its various manifestations - from the armed guerrilla to Gandhian mass pacifist protest, from Wikileaks and the Arab Spring to the global eruption and violent repression of the Occupy movement - concepts of resistance are becoming ubiquitous and urgent. In this book, Howard Caygill conducts the first ever systematic analysis of ‘resistance': as a means of defying political oppression, in its relationship with military violence and its cultural representation.

Beginning with the militaristic doctrine of Clausewitz and the evolution of a new model of guerrilla warfare to resist the forces of Napoleonic France, On Resistance elucidates and critiques the contributions of seminal resistant thinkers from Marx and Nietzsche to Mao, Gandhi, Sartre and Fanon to identify continuities of resistance and rebellion from the Paris Commune to the Greenham Women's Peace Camp. Employing a threefold line of inquiry, Caygill exposes the persistent discourses through which resistance has been framed in terms of force, violence, consciousness and subjectivity to evolve a critique of resistance. Tracing the features of resistance, its strategies, character and habitual forms throughout modern world history Caygill identifies the typological consistencies which make up resistance. Finally, by teasing out the conceptual nuances of resistance and its affinities to concepts of repression, reform and revolution, Caygill reflects upon contemporary manifestations of resistance to identify whether the 21st century is evolving new understandings of protest and struggle.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Sociology

264 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Lukáš · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now, this is a great and timely book. To give a short synopsis, Howard Caygill does two major moves. The first one is to offer a challenging re-reading of Clausewitz' super-influential book, On War, arguing, that it brings a set of alternatives to Fichte, Schelling and Hegel into Kantian philosophy insofar as it stresses the physics of war and resistance. In a sense, On War can thus be called On Resistance as that, which conditions war is the capacity to resist. Not stable, not inexhaustible, quite fungid. Just holding an ontological primacy. Something Caygill also identifies with a Clausewitz's contemporary, the painter Francesco Goya, as supporting the argument by the idea that resistance is 'in' the game.
The second move is a kind of chronological look, or, better said, a sketchy conceptual history, through the ways, how Clausewitz and the idea of resistance bound with his thought have informed different ways of thinking resistance (and revolution), from Marx and Engels, Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg through Mao, Gandhi, through the French resistance and de Gaulle, Emmanuel Levinas, Pier Paolo Passolini, the Situationists, the Zapatistas, the Naxalites in India, or the authors of The Coming Insurrection to Julian Assange and other more or less expected examples. Here, the book indeed holds to its sub-title, which is A Philosophy of Defiance and instead of telling the reader to think this or that way, takes all the examples as building up to a body of thought.
The only minor criticism of this book might be that it is perhaps 'too' generous toward almost every single idea it engages with, but then, levying this as an objection would be an act of counter-resistance. By the end of the book, every careful reader would be perfectly cautious there.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Resistance to political repression has been around for a long time, from violent revolution to creative non-violent change. This book discusses the philosophy behind the movements.

[Re · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not exactly accessible reading but a very rich an interesting text on the history and practice of resistance.

[Inna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant book.