On Violence: A Reader

by Bruce B. Lawrence (Editor)

This anthology brings together classic perspectives on violence, putting into productive conversation the thought of well-known theorists and activists, including Hannah Arendt, Karl Marx, G. W. F. Hegel, Osama bin Laden, Sigmund Freud, Frantz Fanon, Thomas Hobbes, and Pierre Bourdieu. The volume proceeds from the editors’ contention that violence is always historically contingent; it must be contextualized to be understood. They argue that violence is a process rather than a discrete product. It is intrinsic to the human condition, an inescapable fact of life that can be channeled and reckoned with but never completely suppressed. Above all, they seek to illuminate the relationship between action and knowledge about violence, and to examine how one might speak about violence without replicating or perpetuating it. On Violence is divided into five sections. Underscoring the connection between violence and economic world orders, the first section explores the dialectical relationship between domination and subordination. The second section brings together pieces by political actors who spoke about the tension between violence and nonviolence—Gandhi, Hitler, and Malcolm X—and by critics who have commented on that tension. The third grouping examines institutional faces of violence—familial, legal, and religious—while the fourth reflects on state violence. With a focus on issues of representation, the final section includes pieces on the relationship between violence and art, stories, and the media. The editors’ introduction to each section highlights the significant theoretical points raised and the interconnections between the essays. Brief introductions to individual selections provide information about the authors and their particular contributions to theories of violence. With selections by : Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, Osama bin Laden, Pierre Bourdieu, André Breton, James Cone, Robert M. Cover, Gilles Deleuze, Friedrich Engels, Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault, Sigmund Freud, Mohandas Gandhi, René Girard, Linda Gordon, Antonio Gramsci, Félix Guattari, G. W. F. Hegel, Adolf Hitler, Thomas Hobbes, Bruce B. Lawrence, Elliott Leyton, Catharine MacKinnon, Malcolm X, Dorothy Martin, Karl Marx, Chandra Muzaffar, James C. Scott, Kristine Stiles, Michael Taussig, Leon Trotsky, Simone Weil, Sharon Welch, Raymond Williams

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Sociology, Politics

592 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2007

Reviews

[trichomet · Rating 5 out of 5]

The only other reviewer tragically misses the mark and needs to mature his thinking. This is an invaluable text and we should not expect some kind of paternal editorial voice to guide us neatly from one "conclusion" to the next. When in 2012 you pick up a book on violence containing passages by hegel, engels, bin laden, hitler, malcolm x, ghandi, fanon, gramsci, james c. scott, bourdieu, freud, walter benjamin etc... you are meant to understand that you are holding in your hand a lifetime education. A collection of this scope and power is historically unprecedented. You are not holding a book whose singular "thesis" you can confirm or deny. You are approaching a topic which is so charged, so radical, so vital, so at-the-limits of the cloud of ideology which masks the real movements of material actors in our world, that it threatens to shred your way of life and profoundly alter your course. In the same way this reviewer would possibly pass through a year wandering the poor countries of the earth speaking to government stooges, orphans, soldiers, musicians, farmers, shop-owners, prostitutes, and so on... and only come out of it with the conclusion "None of them gave me the truth of the situation. They even contradict each other." Even were we to restrict ourselves to the work of one of the authors in this book, it would still be our responsibility to read them properly and exercise the fullest capacity of our mind in understanding them - that means extending the principle of charity and also not being afraid to call them out and raise objections. You should do this even with a newspaper article, even with an advertisement. The only other reviewer highlights not a flaw in the book, but in his own reading practices.

Be aware: I was not ready for this book when it first came into my life 4 years ago. Only now are the passages opening up to me, having done much prerequisite reading and thinking. I expect it will be my whole life through before I can exhaust every lesson I can learn from reflecting on these pages.

[Nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Given the diversity of this anthology, one cannot agree or disagree with the thesis, which seems to be merely to present a dialogue between very divergent philosophies: essays by everyone from Hitler to Ghandi are collected here. I had hoped for more editorial input, as the reader is left to process some very dense texts and moderate the extremely complex internal dialogue that arises from the juxtaposition of such diverse monologues.