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How Nonviolence Protects The State
Since the civil rights era, the doctrine of nonviolence has enjoyed near-universal acceptance by the US Left. Today protest is often shaped by cooperation with state authorities-even organizers of rallies against police brutality apply for police permits, and anti-imperialists usually stop short of supporting self-defense and armed resistance. How Nonviolence Protects the State challenges the belief that nonviolence is the only way to fight for a better world. In a call bound to stir controversy and lively debate, Peter Gelderloos invites activists to consider diverse tactics, passionately arguing that exclusive nonviolence often acts to reinforce the same structures of oppression that activists seek to overthrow.
Contemporary movements for social change face plenty of difficult questions, but sometimes matters of strategy and tactics receive low priority. Many North American activists fail to scrutinize the role of nonviolence, never posing essential
â Is nonviolence effective at ending systems of oppression?
â Does nonviolence intersect with white privilege and the dominance of North over South?
â How does pacifism reinforce the same power dynamic as patriarchy?
â Ultimately, does nonviolence protect the state?
Peter Gelderloos is a radical community organizer. He is the author of A New Handbook for Grassroots Political, Social, and Environmental Groups and a contributor to Letters From Young Activists. He is the co-facilitator of a workshop on the prison system, and is also involved in independent media, copwatching, anti-oppression work, and anarchist organizing.
Contemporary movements for social change face plenty of difficult questions, but sometimes matters of strategy and tactics receive low priority. Many North American activists fail to scrutinize the role of nonviolence, never posing essential
â Is nonviolence effective at ending systems of oppression?
â Does nonviolence intersect with white privilege and the dominance of North over South?
â How does pacifism reinforce the same power dynamic as patriarchy?
â Ultimately, does nonviolence protect the state?
Peter Gelderloos is a radical community organizer. He is the author of A New Handbook for Grassroots Political, Social, and Environmental Groups and a contributor to Letters From Young Activists. He is the co-facilitator of a workshop on the prison system, and is also involved in independent media, copwatching, anti-oppression work, and anarchist organizing.
First published January 1, 2007
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About the author
Peter Gelderloos
26 books112 followersPeter Gelderloos is an American anarchist activist and writer.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 156 reviews
January 9, 2008
I don't think I have ever read anything that persuaded me to change my mind about something so radically. While I wasn't an absolute pacifist going into this book, I was pretty committed to nonviolence, and had been for many, many years. Because of this well-argued book, I am now convinced that the doctrine of nonviolence is misinformed, racist, patriarchal, authoritarian and ineffective. Privileged activists like myself who are not prepared to participate in strategic violent resistance directly should at least ally ourselves with those who are, rather than isolating them. This book is not without its weak spots (the widespread tendency of many movements to "fetishize" violence is given only a passing mention) but it still does a remarkable job of attacking familiar positions that certain strategies of resistance should be morally off-limits simply because they are "violent", whatever that really means. Opposing hierarchy, not violence, should be our moral and strategic compass.
October 24, 2014
I have a lot of conflicting thoughts about this book. On the one hand I feel like I learned a lot from it, and gained some worldview-evolving information; but on the other, the author said a few really ignorant things. I skipped the chapter on patriarchy, (correctly) assuming it would be full of references to sexual violence and atrocity propaganda. While glancing through this chapter after finishing the book, I came across the cringe-inducing phrase "women and transgender people" (as if these are two mutually exclusive categories). The author also referred to Silvia Rivera as a drag queen, when she'd been openly identifying as a woman for decades before the book was written. Found that pretty offensive. The use of racial slurs to refer to the Romani people was disturbing, too.
I do think there's value in reading this book, even though the author shouldn't try to speak for groups he knows little to nothing about. There's some good information about the Black liberation movement, and tons of recommended reading. Gelderloos sometimes strays into the polemic, but it's significant to note that he at least has personal experience with riots and direct action and holding cells, unlike many well-known theoreticians who merely put words onto paper. I really would have liked to have seen more discussion about class and its role in hierarchical oppression, plus the acknowledgement that men are not the only ones capable of oppressive violence.
I think it's important, within a discussion involving words like 'violence' and 'nonviolence', to come up with a definition for violence. In my own case, I tend to believe an action is violent if it comes from a figure or group who nonconsensually possesses power over others, and is using this power against someone who is physically or psychologically incapable of fighting back with the same amount of power. In other words, police brutality is violence. However, a person defending themself against an attack by the police is not being violent, nor is a person who prevents a police officer from attacking someone. Self-defense and sabotage-based direct action are two things which (if done effectively, and if done against fascists) can actually prevent further violence. This is to be encouraged.
For a long time I considered myself to be a pacifist, but these days I don't. This book helped me realise how much I've changed in the last couple years. Obviously I'm still against systemic violence, imperialism, and government-funded bombings, but now I'm comfortable with a greater number of ways of fighting back.
I do think there's value in reading this book, even though the author shouldn't try to speak for groups he knows little to nothing about. There's some good information about the Black liberation movement, and tons of recommended reading. Gelderloos sometimes strays into the polemic, but it's significant to note that he at least has personal experience with riots and direct action and holding cells, unlike many well-known theoreticians who merely put words onto paper. I really would have liked to have seen more discussion about class and its role in hierarchical oppression, plus the acknowledgement that men are not the only ones capable of oppressive violence.
I think it's important, within a discussion involving words like 'violence' and 'nonviolence', to come up with a definition for violence. In my own case, I tend to believe an action is violent if it comes from a figure or group who nonconsensually possesses power over others, and is using this power against someone who is physically or psychologically incapable of fighting back with the same amount of power. In other words, police brutality is violence. However, a person defending themself against an attack by the police is not being violent, nor is a person who prevents a police officer from attacking someone. Self-defense and sabotage-based direct action are two things which (if done effectively, and if done against fascists) can actually prevent further violence. This is to be encouraged.
For a long time I considered myself to be a pacifist, but these days I don't. This book helped me realise how much I've changed in the last couple years. Obviously I'm still against systemic violence, imperialism, and government-funded bombings, but now I'm comfortable with a greater number of ways of fighting back.
March 28, 2015
I think this book is important, and has given me many words and helped me find explanations for thoughts and ideologies in my mind which were previously abstract. Unfortunately, there are several things wrong with it. Firstly, I find it odd an anarchist is focused on criticising patriarchy rather than hierarchy. The root of patriarchy is hierarchy. An imperialist with a different set of genitals is still an imperialist. So it is with capitalists and all others with similar conditions of power, wealth, and privilege. Privilege can be diverse, and forgetting that is just complacency toward certain oppressors.
Similar to this, his perception of who is inherently privileged is flawed in the same way 'social justice' circles have perpetuated today - the assumption that anyone and everyone of light skin-tone is never at any time targeted for their ethnic background, that these inhereted traits offer significant benefit (economic and social), or that this ethnic background does not form a particular unique struggle. For example, while I have light skin, my ancestors are survivors of targeted ethnic-based mass murder, particularly through manufactured famines. My body and my working-class background (going back generations) reflect this. I have always been the red-goat of the group, a racial outsider (even in my own family), always pushed aside to make way for the aryan-based ethnic ruling class. It must be addressed the matter of the internal white racial hierarchy.
The lands of the gaellic people, while in the global north, have historically (and still today) struggle(d) against colonial violence and exploitation, underdevelopment and excessive capitalist abuses leading to mass emigration and displacement, and a violent cultural diaspora of racism against us. In my experience, I have been baffled and offended by the claims against me of privilege, particularly as those claims have primarily come from wealthy and stable people, and directed at a survivor of homelessness and human trafficking, a survivor of the constant repression of poverty. A person of colour with stable economic and social standing is more likely to have less to worry about in life than an emaciated and isolated irish worker.
Next, while he does seem more articulate in describing violence than I come to expect from the typical atroprop-anarchist, I decided it best to skip the chapter on how nonviolence is patriarchal, because I have found even the most articulate and thoughtful writers still have problems using words which cause a trigger of post-traumatic stress disorder in readers from backgrounds of survival. This includes the r-word for sexual violence, the g-word for mass racist murder, the g-word for roma peoples, and so on. The search for sensitivity and sensitive words is one which must bounce constructively around the circles of the self-educated and personally-experienced, as we need not add to the already-existing stresses marginalized peoples struggle with every day.
In the bit I did see of the chapter I skipped, he clearly has no understanding of gender-based struggle. It is a great offense he would define the transwomn and radical queer Sylvia Rivera as a 'drag queen', and place trans people after women, as if our struggles are the same or less important. If the author wants so much to eliminate patriarchy, particularly among anarchist thought and organization - if he so hates oppression, unequal privilege, and co-opting of struggle - he shouldn't be writing on struggles he knows nothing about. He should leave the information about tranarchists and queer history, as well as women and marginalized races, to the people who know these experiences through their experiences.
So, I had to skip some. But, even with a bit of skipping, I got a basic outline of why nonviolence is not only ineffective (I could see this from an early age just based on how state violence continued unabated), but also protects the state. The author often writes very long or even excessively-long sentences, which hampered my ability to effectively receive and understand the ideas in this book. It helps to read the most confusing lines and paragraphs more than once. Finally, the author is also a bit of a hypocrite, and inserts an amount of atrocity propaganda to make his point. There are better books and more-thoughtful writers out there, and with some of his many sources and my own searching abilities, I can find them and learn far more from them.
Similar to this, his perception of who is inherently privileged is flawed in the same way 'social justice' circles have perpetuated today - the assumption that anyone and everyone of light skin-tone is never at any time targeted for their ethnic background, that these inhereted traits offer significant benefit (economic and social), or that this ethnic background does not form a particular unique struggle. For example, while I have light skin, my ancestors are survivors of targeted ethnic-based mass murder, particularly through manufactured famines. My body and my working-class background (going back generations) reflect this. I have always been the red-goat of the group, a racial outsider (even in my own family), always pushed aside to make way for the aryan-based ethnic ruling class. It must be addressed the matter of the internal white racial hierarchy.
The lands of the gaellic people, while in the global north, have historically (and still today) struggle(d) against colonial violence and exploitation, underdevelopment and excessive capitalist abuses leading to mass emigration and displacement, and a violent cultural diaspora of racism against us. In my experience, I have been baffled and offended by the claims against me of privilege, particularly as those claims have primarily come from wealthy and stable people, and directed at a survivor of homelessness and human trafficking, a survivor of the constant repression of poverty. A person of colour with stable economic and social standing is more likely to have less to worry about in life than an emaciated and isolated irish worker.
Next, while he does seem more articulate in describing violence than I come to expect from the typical atroprop-anarchist, I decided it best to skip the chapter on how nonviolence is patriarchal, because I have found even the most articulate and thoughtful writers still have problems using words which cause a trigger of post-traumatic stress disorder in readers from backgrounds of survival. This includes the r-word for sexual violence, the g-word for mass racist murder, the g-word for roma peoples, and so on. The search for sensitivity and sensitive words is one which must bounce constructively around the circles of the self-educated and personally-experienced, as we need not add to the already-existing stresses marginalized peoples struggle with every day.
In the bit I did see of the chapter I skipped, he clearly has no understanding of gender-based struggle. It is a great offense he would define the transwomn and radical queer Sylvia Rivera as a 'drag queen', and place trans people after women, as if our struggles are the same or less important. If the author wants so much to eliminate patriarchy, particularly among anarchist thought and organization - if he so hates oppression, unequal privilege, and co-opting of struggle - he shouldn't be writing on struggles he knows nothing about. He should leave the information about tranarchists and queer history, as well as women and marginalized races, to the people who know these experiences through their experiences.
So, I had to skip some. But, even with a bit of skipping, I got a basic outline of why nonviolence is not only ineffective (I could see this from an early age just based on how state violence continued unabated), but also protects the state. The author often writes very long or even excessively-long sentences, which hampered my ability to effectively receive and understand the ideas in this book. It helps to read the most confusing lines and paragraphs more than once. Finally, the author is also a bit of a hypocrite, and inserts an amount of atrocity propaganda to make his point. There are better books and more-thoughtful writers out there, and with some of his many sources and my own searching abilities, I can find them and learn far more from them.
October 30, 2019
This book was extremely frustrating for me. It was like reading a social media rant from someone I mostly agreed with, but was unable to comment.
Gelderloos had some great points, but fluctuating definitions, occasional self-invalidation, and lack of counter research (save for anecdotal evidence or historical references without context) were his achilles heel. His supporting evidence was strong, but he left huge gaps in his answer to arguments FOR pacifism, which left me feeling like he doesn't understand the thinking behind nonviolent, or even pleasure, activism. Several times I wondered if he'd actually consulted a pacifist, nonviolent activist, or victims of racism, sexism, or abuse. Because of this, the tone feels rushed.
Having said that, he makes some incredibly powerful points that resonate. This activist (radical anarchist, I think he'd prefer to be called) has the power to influence necessary change, and he's young, so I believe he will and is likely doing so since the publication of this book. But this particular work shows immaturity. I hope to read more from him in the future that covers more ground, research-wise. Although I don't expect to necessarily agree with him about the most effective tactics to spur necessary change, a voice like his is essential to any movement.
Gelderloos had some great points, but fluctuating definitions, occasional self-invalidation, and lack of counter research (save for anecdotal evidence or historical references without context) were his achilles heel. His supporting evidence was strong, but he left huge gaps in his answer to arguments FOR pacifism, which left me feeling like he doesn't understand the thinking behind nonviolent, or even pleasure, activism. Several times I wondered if he'd actually consulted a pacifist, nonviolent activist, or victims of racism, sexism, or abuse. Because of this, the tone feels rushed.
Having said that, he makes some incredibly powerful points that resonate. This activist (radical anarchist, I think he'd prefer to be called) has the power to influence necessary change, and he's young, so I believe he will and is likely doing so since the publication of this book. But this particular work shows immaturity. I hope to read more from him in the future that covers more ground, research-wise. Although I don't expect to necessarily agree with him about the most effective tactics to spur necessary change, a voice like his is essential to any movement.
December 9, 2009
Peter Gelderloos claims to advocate a variety of tactics with which to achieve social revolution and transformation, each “chosen to fit the particular situation [and:] not drawn from a preconceived moral code” (3). Often he accomplishes this through the defense or justification of militancy at the expense of nonviolent resolution. Though his tract is indeed contrived from an interesting standpoint, he relies too heavily on the novelty of his position to persuade readers rather than supporting his argument with solid evidence.
December 21, 2010
Only one charming example, out of many, of Gelderloos' astounding scholastic prowess; he lists a personal e-mail exchange with a JMU professor as his only academic citation in regards to his account of Gandhi and the history of Indian national liberation struggle.
A blatant and unreadable plagiarism of Churchill's highly recommended Pacism as Pathology. Boycott Peter Gelderloos.
A blatant and unreadable plagiarism of Churchill's highly recommended Pacism as Pathology. Boycott Peter Gelderloos.
July 24, 2017
i.....did not enjoy this book. in terms of style the author is incredibly repetitive and it annoys me. okay we get it. liberals are bad and ignorant. you are such a good activist because you dont shy away from violence. we get it. something about the authors tone angered me and i couldnt explain it until i realized he was an anarchist. suddenly it made a lot of sense.
as a marxist, i found the authors arguments childish. like at one point i had to ask myself if the author was just pro violence for the sake of it because he wasnt doing a very good job of differentiating between different kinds of violence and how effective those methods are. there was a particularly troubling part where he suggests suicide bombers were more effective for the antiwar movement than peaceful protesters and it felt like a strange fetishization of violence for the sake of it. i am not a pacifist by any means nor do i believe that we should be ~peaceful~ or whatever but it felt as if we only had those two options: either wait patiently for slaughter or commit acts of terrorism indiscriminately, to hell with who gets caught in the crossfire. organizing the working class? no, let's just go out in a blaze of glory and do as much damage as possible, woo yea thatll definitely save us.
also the bit where he was like 'we shouldnt be afraid of the state repressing us' well yes you should consider how random acts of terrorism will affect organized resistance movements you selfish bastard.
there was no talk of building a larger movement, just weird obsessing over how great violence is and how if the oppressed do it it's always legitimate and overall positive for the oppressed. we cant view violence from the oppressed like we do violence from the state, of course, and thats about the only thing we agree with.
also oh god yea hes okay with violence and seizing power until you set up a revolutionary government. then you become As Bad As The Capitalists (as noted when he shat all over the russian revolution and whined about leninism or whatever). so yes, i guess violence is Good until you actually have to use it to hold onto power. then youre Just As Bad even though a socialist state is not at all the same thing as a capitalist state. like violence is Good until you have to use it to repress counterrevolutionaries and capitalist militaries attacking you and shit. but yeah just committing random acts of terrorism is good, just bomb civilization into anarchy or whatever. violence isnt legitimate if youre a struggling revolutionary government though. okay. fucking anarchists, man.
as a marxist, i found the authors arguments childish. like at one point i had to ask myself if the author was just pro violence for the sake of it because he wasnt doing a very good job of differentiating between different kinds of violence and how effective those methods are. there was a particularly troubling part where he suggests suicide bombers were more effective for the antiwar movement than peaceful protesters and it felt like a strange fetishization of violence for the sake of it. i am not a pacifist by any means nor do i believe that we should be ~peaceful~ or whatever but it felt as if we only had those two options: either wait patiently for slaughter or commit acts of terrorism indiscriminately, to hell with who gets caught in the crossfire. organizing the working class? no, let's just go out in a blaze of glory and do as much damage as possible, woo yea thatll definitely save us.
also the bit where he was like 'we shouldnt be afraid of the state repressing us' well yes you should consider how random acts of terrorism will affect organized resistance movements you selfish bastard.
there was no talk of building a larger movement, just weird obsessing over how great violence is and how if the oppressed do it it's always legitimate and overall positive for the oppressed. we cant view violence from the oppressed like we do violence from the state, of course, and thats about the only thing we agree with.
also oh god yea hes okay with violence and seizing power until you set up a revolutionary government. then you become As Bad As The Capitalists (as noted when he shat all over the russian revolution and whined about leninism or whatever). so yes, i guess violence is Good until you actually have to use it to hold onto power. then youre Just As Bad even though a socialist state is not at all the same thing as a capitalist state. like violence is Good until you have to use it to repress counterrevolutionaries and capitalist militaries attacking you and shit. but yeah just committing random acts of terrorism is good, just bomb civilization into anarchy or whatever. violence isnt legitimate if youre a struggling revolutionary government though. okay. fucking anarchists, man.
May 15, 2009
Revolutionary movements have toiled for generations around a variety of issues. And since the 1999 World Trade Organization demonstrations in Seattle, Washington, where activists using a range of tactics succeeded in thwarting WTO meetings, debates over approach have been central to the dialogue.
In his book, Gelderloos makes a fearless though at points flawed argument against not simply pacifism, but the philosophy of nonviolence in the context of social change. Many are likely to find such a position to be an implicit advocacy of violent action, and thus marginal, at best. But a careful read of the philosophical construct is certain to get you pondering.
Utilizing a constellation of historical references, judicious citations and old-fashioned polemic, the author lays a variety of crimes at the feet of nonviolent philosophy. The blemish to this construct, aside from the rhetoric which Gelderloos acknowledges is a forceful, even vitriolic, criticism of nonviolence, is that it doesn't seem to acknowledge nonviolence's role as one of a diversity of tactics. While some of Gelderloos' claims have merit, some examples and painting of interests engaged in modern politics seem oversimplified to prove a point, rather than stated to dissect the real complexities of human interaction and history. And, though he gives many reasons why the philosophy of nonviolence may be racist or sexist, he doesn't adequately refute longstanding critiques of rambunctious factions being mostly composed of young, white men without a real grasp of gender or racial justice politics either.
In his book, Gelderloos makes a fearless though at points flawed argument against not simply pacifism, but the philosophy of nonviolence in the context of social change. Many are likely to find such a position to be an implicit advocacy of violent action, and thus marginal, at best. But a careful read of the philosophical construct is certain to get you pondering.
Utilizing a constellation of historical references, judicious citations and old-fashioned polemic, the author lays a variety of crimes at the feet of nonviolent philosophy. The blemish to this construct, aside from the rhetoric which Gelderloos acknowledges is a forceful, even vitriolic, criticism of nonviolence, is that it doesn't seem to acknowledge nonviolence's role as one of a diversity of tactics. While some of Gelderloos' claims have merit, some examples and painting of interests engaged in modern politics seem oversimplified to prove a point, rather than stated to dissect the real complexities of human interaction and history. And, though he gives many reasons why the philosophy of nonviolence may be racist or sexist, he doesn't adequately refute longstanding critiques of rambunctious factions being mostly composed of young, white men without a real grasp of gender or racial justice politics either.
January 29, 2015
An interesting and compelling critique of pacifism as an ideological imperative. Gelderloos shows that those who demand a strict adherence to a principle of non-violence in social movements are speaking from a privileged, authoritarian, self-serving, and delusional position. He argues that non-violence is ineffective, racist, patriarchal, and tactically limiting. Not only that, but it is not truly "non-violent" as it perpetuates a system of coercive force to maintain the capitalist status quo.
It makes little sense for anti-war protesters to focus on the window smashing of other protesters rather than the bombs being dropped that provoked the protest in the first place. Which came first: police oppression or riots? Will those in power relinquish through moral appeals, sign holding, chanting, and polite discussion? These are the things that this book gets you thinking about outside of your normal cultural conditioning.
It makes little sense for anti-war protesters to focus on the window smashing of other protesters rather than the bombs being dropped that provoked the protest in the first place. Which came first: police oppression or riots? Will those in power relinquish through moral appeals, sign holding, chanting, and polite discussion? These are the things that this book gets you thinking about outside of your normal cultural conditioning.
March 28, 2019
A polemic written by a guy who says he's writing this book because he didn't get enough time to speak uninterrupted at a panel... so you know, your average white male anarchist. Anyway, it was on my reading list for years and I came across it at a bookstore and figured I'd give it a go.
The book didn't totally blow my mind because it's not like I was a committed pacifist who needed to have my mind changed - while I don't know if I necessarily would be down to commit violent acts, I respect diversity of tactics and care more about the violence of the state. But it did provide a pretty clear argument and talking points that helped crystallize how I feel and could be useful in talking to others about it.
The book didn't totally blow my mind because it's not like I was a committed pacifist who needed to have my mind changed - while I don't know if I necessarily would be down to commit violent acts, I respect diversity of tactics and care more about the violence of the state. But it did provide a pretty clear argument and talking points that helped crystallize how I feel and could be useful in talking to others about it.
July 17, 2025
Convincing argument that pacifism is a pathology of the left (As an incisive goodreads participant pointed out and perhaps you are likely aware of also: that there is another book with that title "pacifism as pathology" by ward churchill). That book is extensively sourced and is listed as recommended read in Gelderloos' book. Brave ideas irregardless of who wants to claim the patent. I don't necessarily agree with everything here but it puts forward an impressive argument for the right to self-defense.
September 7, 2020
"I wonder at men who dare to feel that they have some paternalistic right to set the timetable for another man's liberation."
- The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
- The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
October 30, 2020
Gelderloos seems to be railing against the widely accepted liberal notion that resistance against institutions, specifically the State, should prioritize decorum and respect. The whole "when they go low, we go high". He's right about the inherent disempowerment that happens when pacifism is generalized to being moral.
Where he largely fails though is at distinguishing between pacifism and nonviolent resistance. And at assessing nonviolence merely as one tool rather than an overarching paradigm.
The work of Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan shows empirical evidence of the strategical effectiveness of civil resistance. I recommend reading their books. But keep your skepticism in tact with their work same as you should with Gelderloos's.
Gelderloos does directly address Chenoweth and Stephan's work in a later book. And I think he makes much stronger points there. The biggest sign that Gelderloos didn't do his due diligence with this book is the lack of evidence.
The chapter on nonviolence being patriarchal though was particularly odd. It made one salient point about the patriarchal expectation of submission from women. But again, Gelderloos's focus is on the culture of pacifism, not strategic nonviolence. And again, that's all well and good but then it seems disengenuous to ignore the inherent exclusion that often comes with violence. And it's even more puzzling to ignore how patriarchy has culturally elevated violence and domination.
To sum up, my biggest gripes here are that:
-He equates pacifism and nonviolence
-His analysis is asymmetric. He mostly argues for violence's strategical effectiveness and against nonviolence's moral status. He's using different measuring sticks.
-He leans into sensationalism by posturing as if he is wholly against nonviolence being viewed as effective, even though he does at times acknowledge nonviolence is useful as one tool -- just not the sole tool.
I want to reiterate that Gelderloos does make some good points. I think the fundamental point that the cult of pacifism isn't in the best interest of the people absolutely has merit (I agree with him). He's less effective when he loses that focus.
His newer work is better.
Where he largely fails though is at distinguishing between pacifism and nonviolent resistance. And at assessing nonviolence merely as one tool rather than an overarching paradigm.
The work of Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan shows empirical evidence of the strategical effectiveness of civil resistance. I recommend reading their books. But keep your skepticism in tact with their work same as you should with Gelderloos's.
Gelderloos does directly address Chenoweth and Stephan's work in a later book. And I think he makes much stronger points there. The biggest sign that Gelderloos didn't do his due diligence with this book is the lack of evidence.
The chapter on nonviolence being patriarchal though was particularly odd. It made one salient point about the patriarchal expectation of submission from women. But again, Gelderloos's focus is on the culture of pacifism, not strategic nonviolence. And again, that's all well and good but then it seems disengenuous to ignore the inherent exclusion that often comes with violence. And it's even more puzzling to ignore how patriarchy has culturally elevated violence and domination.
To sum up, my biggest gripes here are that:
-He equates pacifism and nonviolence
-His analysis is asymmetric. He mostly argues for violence's strategical effectiveness and against nonviolence's moral status. He's using different measuring sticks.
-He leans into sensationalism by posturing as if he is wholly against nonviolence being viewed as effective, even though he does at times acknowledge nonviolence is useful as one tool -- just not the sole tool.
I want to reiterate that Gelderloos does make some good points. I think the fundamental point that the cult of pacifism isn't in the best interest of the people absolutely has merit (I agree with him). He's less effective when he loses that focus.
His newer work is better.
July 9, 2021
Anyone who grows up in American public schools knows about the vaunted power of non-violent peaceful protest. Violent protest never works, only peaceful protest can get useful results.
Well, Peter Gelderloos says, "Piss on that."
Gelderloos is an anarchist and so the book is coming at the problem of enacting real, lasting social change from that perspective. Which is, that the state must be abolished to bring that about. And this does color a few things and there are a few digressions wherein he gets caught up just bitching about ineffective liberals. But, for the most part, the book bears thinking about and should spur anyone to research its ideas more deeply. Being thoroughly annotated, "How Nonviolence Protects the State" gives a lot of further reading if one wants to look for it though a lot of the footnotes provide greater context and kind of break up the narrative of the essay and so should probably be skipped on an initial reading.
So, what of those non-violent movements we all learned about in school? Martin Luther King Jr. Mahatma Gandhi. And so forth. The part that gets buried is that these movements existence alongside and worked with other movements that were not committed to non-violence as a principle. In the wake of their movements, there was a deliberate attempt to suppress the role of the more violent protestors as outliers or even as causing more trouble to the peaceful protestors than not and other ways to bury their role in the success. I can remember that Malcolm X was mentioned but seen as nowhere near as important to the cause of civil rights as MLK. Gelderloos cites over activists at the time and notes that Malcolm X's militancy was at least as inspiring if not more. Malcolm X scared the shit out of the white power structure at the time. As Gelderloos tells it, King's movement was seen as a compromise for the powers that be.
Compromise seems to be a sticking point. A group that is non-violent and seeks to change the system from within is generally going to have to compromise its goals. You'll have to deal away some things you want to get others from the existing power structures. Gelderloos calls in to question how effective that is and rightly so. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is remembered as ground breaking but just getting it passed require extensive compromise and the movement wouldn't get its much-sought-after voting rights act until the following year.
For de-colonizing efforts, Gelderloos posits that Gandhi's ultimate negotiation with the British allowed the British colonizers to dictate the method and terms of their de-colonization. The results of this, as in other former colonies, allow the colonizers to continue the economic exploitation of the colony without all the bother of direct administration.
Gelderloos's dissection of the pitfalls of pure non-violent movements are pretty thorough and for the most part accurate. He repeatedly drives home that what he's after is a diversity of tactics and the selection of tactics based on the situation at hand. He's not necessarily advocating going out and chucking molotov cocktails (though given his support for the ALF he's probably OK with that) but he does not agree with the idea that some tactics should be restricted. The powers that be will not hold back and if you believe the non-violence of your movement will shield you from state reprisals it must come with the admission that this is because the powers that be do not view you as a threat. And, as we've seen in the last year, what constitutes violence can vary pretty wildly. Police had no qualms about calling in actual military to suppress demonstrators over some broken glass in store fronts. This suppression was exceptionally brutal with the use of tear gas (which would be illegal to use against enemy combatants in war) and rubber bullets resulting in numerous injuries and permanent maimings (there is a sort of club of protestors who lost an eye to police rubber bullets this past summer). This was seen as proportional to the actions of some protestors breaking some glass.
While it's beyond the scope of this essay I might have liked to see a more thorough accounting for violent tactics and modern anarchists. Gelderloos writes as though the revolution was just around the corner if only more people would get with the damn program but I find that difficult to buy. I think it is inarguable that modern American armchair anarchist revolutionaries are farther from their goals now than they were 100 years ago. Back then anarchist Leon Czolgosz shot and killed president William McKinley. An anarchist walked into the office of a CEO who had called in the Pinkertons on striking workers and shot him in the face. Granted, security is tighter now. The hardest part of Czolgosz's assassination was waiting in line to get close to McKinley. When Gelderloos writes of modern violent anarchist movements it's groups fighting for their lives against US Imperialism overseas or groups like the Animal Liberation Front which.. I don't think is or even intends to bring about the stateless utopia. The ALF is pretty focused in its goals. The poster children for modern revolutionary armchair anarchism are facebookers in the Socialist Rifle Association who seem to be more interested in collecting guns and fantasizing about their use against state tyranny than actually opposing said tyranny and a handful of academic youtube video essayists. Sure, Noam Chomsky is still out there but I don't know that he's quite as much of a firebrand as Gelderloos hopes to gain.
Ultimately, Gelderloos brings a lot to ponder. And there are definitely some concrete lessons to be taken away from his essay. Chief among them should probably be: privileged white people don't get to tell the oppressed how they should protest their oppression. Trusting non-violence pledges to keep the powers that be from visiting violence upon you also does not work (As Gelderloos points out several times: Sticking a flower down the barrel of a gun does nothing to stop the gun from shooting you). Additionally, while I don't tend toward anarchy in my own beliefs, we've now seen a lot of the compromises the civil rights movement worked for being gutted before our very eyes. The aforementioned voting rights act totters on the brink of annihilation as a conservative supreme court undercuts it more every few years. Perhaps trusting the state to stick to the reforms negotiated for was, ultimately, a mistake. Perhaps incremental-change reform was also in error. Maybe things should have been entirely upended.
Well, Peter Gelderloos says, "Piss on that."
Gelderloos is an anarchist and so the book is coming at the problem of enacting real, lasting social change from that perspective. Which is, that the state must be abolished to bring that about. And this does color a few things and there are a few digressions wherein he gets caught up just bitching about ineffective liberals. But, for the most part, the book bears thinking about and should spur anyone to research its ideas more deeply. Being thoroughly annotated, "How Nonviolence Protects the State" gives a lot of further reading if one wants to look for it though a lot of the footnotes provide greater context and kind of break up the narrative of the essay and so should probably be skipped on an initial reading.
So, what of those non-violent movements we all learned about in school? Martin Luther King Jr. Mahatma Gandhi. And so forth. The part that gets buried is that these movements existence alongside and worked with other movements that were not committed to non-violence as a principle. In the wake of their movements, there was a deliberate attempt to suppress the role of the more violent protestors as outliers or even as causing more trouble to the peaceful protestors than not and other ways to bury their role in the success. I can remember that Malcolm X was mentioned but seen as nowhere near as important to the cause of civil rights as MLK. Gelderloos cites over activists at the time and notes that Malcolm X's militancy was at least as inspiring if not more. Malcolm X scared the shit out of the white power structure at the time. As Gelderloos tells it, King's movement was seen as a compromise for the powers that be.
Compromise seems to be a sticking point. A group that is non-violent and seeks to change the system from within is generally going to have to compromise its goals. You'll have to deal away some things you want to get others from the existing power structures. Gelderloos calls in to question how effective that is and rightly so. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is remembered as ground breaking but just getting it passed require extensive compromise and the movement wouldn't get its much-sought-after voting rights act until the following year.
For de-colonizing efforts, Gelderloos posits that Gandhi's ultimate negotiation with the British allowed the British colonizers to dictate the method and terms of their de-colonization. The results of this, as in other former colonies, allow the colonizers to continue the economic exploitation of the colony without all the bother of direct administration.
Gelderloos's dissection of the pitfalls of pure non-violent movements are pretty thorough and for the most part accurate. He repeatedly drives home that what he's after is a diversity of tactics and the selection of tactics based on the situation at hand. He's not necessarily advocating going out and chucking molotov cocktails (though given his support for the ALF he's probably OK with that) but he does not agree with the idea that some tactics should be restricted. The powers that be will not hold back and if you believe the non-violence of your movement will shield you from state reprisals it must come with the admission that this is because the powers that be do not view you as a threat. And, as we've seen in the last year, what constitutes violence can vary pretty wildly. Police had no qualms about calling in actual military to suppress demonstrators over some broken glass in store fronts. This suppression was exceptionally brutal with the use of tear gas (which would be illegal to use against enemy combatants in war) and rubber bullets resulting in numerous injuries and permanent maimings (there is a sort of club of protestors who lost an eye to police rubber bullets this past summer). This was seen as proportional to the actions of some protestors breaking some glass.
While it's beyond the scope of this essay I might have liked to see a more thorough accounting for violent tactics and modern anarchists. Gelderloos writes as though the revolution was just around the corner if only more people would get with the damn program but I find that difficult to buy. I think it is inarguable that modern American armchair anarchist revolutionaries are farther from their goals now than they were 100 years ago. Back then anarchist Leon Czolgosz shot and killed president William McKinley. An anarchist walked into the office of a CEO who had called in the Pinkertons on striking workers and shot him in the face. Granted, security is tighter now. The hardest part of Czolgosz's assassination was waiting in line to get close to McKinley. When Gelderloos writes of modern violent anarchist movements it's groups fighting for their lives against US Imperialism overseas or groups like the Animal Liberation Front which.. I don't think is or even intends to bring about the stateless utopia. The ALF is pretty focused in its goals. The poster children for modern revolutionary armchair anarchism are facebookers in the Socialist Rifle Association who seem to be more interested in collecting guns and fantasizing about their use against state tyranny than actually opposing said tyranny and a handful of academic youtube video essayists. Sure, Noam Chomsky is still out there but I don't know that he's quite as much of a firebrand as Gelderloos hopes to gain.
Ultimately, Gelderloos brings a lot to ponder. And there are definitely some concrete lessons to be taken away from his essay. Chief among them should probably be: privileged white people don't get to tell the oppressed how they should protest their oppression. Trusting non-violence pledges to keep the powers that be from visiting violence upon you also does not work (As Gelderloos points out several times: Sticking a flower down the barrel of a gun does nothing to stop the gun from shooting you). Additionally, while I don't tend toward anarchy in my own beliefs, we've now seen a lot of the compromises the civil rights movement worked for being gutted before our very eyes. The aforementioned voting rights act totters on the brink of annihilation as a conservative supreme court undercuts it more every few years. Perhaps trusting the state to stick to the reforms negotiated for was, ultimately, a mistake. Perhaps incremental-change reform was also in error. Maybe things should have been entirely upended.
November 28, 2021
A high rating off as hypocritical, seeing as I've just given Thoreau's Civil Disobedience four stars, but I'd still give the book four, maybe five stars.
Thoreau suggested and embodied his anti-government revolt with boycott, i.e., he did not pay taxes, he never got married, nor did he consume alcohol and/or tobacco. While he, in fact, employed a variety of nonviolent tactics, he did not separate protest into violence and nonviolence. It is certainly true that (admittedly a generalization) nonviolent "movements" owe great volumes of their stance(s) to a corrupted understanding of (among many other works, but in this case I speak of specifically) Civil Disobedience. Obviously, this is not a light accusation. And what am I even talking about, really? I ask of you one simple thing in regard to rationality: compare the average nonviolent activist of today, in all his self-righteousness, to Thoreau. Notice the first one's "privileged position", that is, dependence on the the state and its capital, by which he/she is able to live and "protest" as he/she does, and Thoreau's presumed autonomy or, at least, his struggle toward a personal independence of state "requirements" (implying that the repressed are voluntarily so, which I presume is alright for white US citizens of the 19th century, but one could not seriously justify such an implication today, considering modern America; nonetheless, this is still often a major fallacy in egotistical pacifist (not to claim that one specifically implies another) reasoning).
This I found the strongest point of "How Nonviolence Protects the State", related to the most important point of anti-statism in general: the capacity for freedom being so far removed from the notions of the person, beginning with the moment of birth into this (as most see it) privileged position, so as to render it incomprehensible. Proponents of nonviolence are unable to realize autonomy - it is not what they strive for because they delude themselves into viewing a possibility for freedom without it. The delusion is a necessity because, at its most effective, nonviolence cannot accomplish more than to temporarily cut off a head of the Hydra, whereby it must stop, allowing the head to grow back, thus nonviolent activists engage in a pattern of conforming their idea of morality to state hierarchy, continuing their predominantly financial support of the state, and continuing to exist by the state's means, thereby indirectly distributing violence. Often, this is childlike, even beautiful naivety. However, it still constitutes standing behind a lie.
This is just a part of what the author attacks in the book. Polemic? Sure, but such a categorization does nothing to discredit its implications. Of course, there are pacifists like Thích Quảng Đức and Jan Palach (for the most popular examples) who, rather than physically hurting the enemy, used violence on themselves in order to get a point across. Time has shown what these suicides have amounted to. (I mean to say that I'll not be the judge of that.) They were human - the system wasn't. With no disrespect to their highest sacrifice, I commend Gelderloos for exposing a doctrine comprised of, for the most part, self-serving bullshit.
Thoreau suggested and embodied his anti-government revolt with boycott, i.e., he did not pay taxes, he never got married, nor did he consume alcohol and/or tobacco. While he, in fact, employed a variety of nonviolent tactics, he did not separate protest into violence and nonviolence. It is certainly true that (admittedly a generalization) nonviolent "movements" owe great volumes of their stance(s) to a corrupted understanding of (among many other works, but in this case I speak of specifically) Civil Disobedience. Obviously, this is not a light accusation. And what am I even talking about, really? I ask of you one simple thing in regard to rationality: compare the average nonviolent activist of today, in all his self-righteousness, to Thoreau. Notice the first one's "privileged position", that is, dependence on the the state and its capital, by which he/she is able to live and "protest" as he/she does, and Thoreau's presumed autonomy or, at least, his struggle toward a personal independence of state "requirements" (implying that the repressed are voluntarily so, which I presume is alright for white US citizens of the 19th century, but one could not seriously justify such an implication today, considering modern America; nonetheless, this is still often a major fallacy in egotistical pacifist (not to claim that one specifically implies another) reasoning).
This I found the strongest point of "How Nonviolence Protects the State", related to the most important point of anti-statism in general: the capacity for freedom being so far removed from the notions of the person, beginning with the moment of birth into this (as most see it) privileged position, so as to render it incomprehensible. Proponents of nonviolence are unable to realize autonomy - it is not what they strive for because they delude themselves into viewing a possibility for freedom without it. The delusion is a necessity because, at its most effective, nonviolence cannot accomplish more than to temporarily cut off a head of the Hydra, whereby it must stop, allowing the head to grow back, thus nonviolent activists engage in a pattern of conforming their idea of morality to state hierarchy, continuing their predominantly financial support of the state, and continuing to exist by the state's means, thereby indirectly distributing violence. Often, this is childlike, even beautiful naivety. However, it still constitutes standing behind a lie.
This is just a part of what the author attacks in the book. Polemic? Sure, but such a categorization does nothing to discredit its implications. Of course, there are pacifists like Thích Quảng Đức and Jan Palach (for the most popular examples) who, rather than physically hurting the enemy, used violence on themselves in order to get a point across. Time has shown what these suicides have amounted to. (I mean to say that I'll not be the judge of that.) They were human - the system wasn't. With no disrespect to their highest sacrifice, I commend Gelderloos for exposing a doctrine comprised of, for the most part, self-serving bullshit.
September 20, 2020
Okay, I couldn't pass up a catchy title -- so what? This provocative, trenchantly written book holds that peaceful protests, absent any aggressive insinuations, amount to wasted effort. I never before thought about nonviolence except as a given, and now I see it in a much more sober light. Such is the persuasiveness of this book.
The argumentation deployed by the author approaches the idea of nonviolence from every possible angle, then deconstructs it point by point: Pacifism, we find, channels protests into useless dead ends; pacifism is class-ridden, appealing to middle class vanity and the desire to stay safe; pacifism is statist, a tactic that confines protest within the very legal and societal norms that are the problems; pacifism is a red herring, injecting protest movements with a false bone of contention; pacifism fails miserably ever to get results; and as much as anything else, the concept of "violence" has no easy definition.
The writing has a few rough edges, and a section of endnotes, I thought, really has so much commentary that it should be included in the text. But seldom does a book cause me to reconsider something so fundamental, and seldom is an argument so trenchant and so tightly laid forth. I guarantee that whoever reads this will finish it with a completely different perspective on the subject of peremptory nonviolence.
The argumentation deployed by the author approaches the idea of nonviolence from every possible angle, then deconstructs it point by point: Pacifism, we find, channels protests into useless dead ends; pacifism is class-ridden, appealing to middle class vanity and the desire to stay safe; pacifism is statist, a tactic that confines protest within the very legal and societal norms that are the problems; pacifism is a red herring, injecting protest movements with a false bone of contention; pacifism fails miserably ever to get results; and as much as anything else, the concept of "violence" has no easy definition.
The writing has a few rough edges, and a section of endnotes, I thought, really has so much commentary that it should be included in the text. But seldom does a book cause me to reconsider something so fundamental, and seldom is an argument so trenchant and so tightly laid forth. I guarantee that whoever reads this will finish it with a completely different perspective on the subject of peremptory nonviolence.
December 11, 2019
I recommend this book to anyone who finds it important to fight any kind of oppression. The main idea is that we need to stop categorizing activist actions by violence/non-violence because we 1) live in the world built on violence and 2) we cannot even agree on what violence is: why is eating meat okay and crashing windows is not?
December 29, 2021
"Pacifists do not make the critical distinction between the structural, institutional, and systemically permitted personal violence of the state (the state being understood in a broad sense to include the functions of the economy and patriarchy) and the individualized social violence of the 'criminal' sort or collective social violence of the 'revolutionary' sort, aimed at destroying the far greater violence of the state. Pretending that all violence is the same is very convenient for supposedly anti-violence privileged people who benefit from the violence of the state and have much to lose from the violence of revolution"
Y PUNTO !!!!!
Y PUNTO !!!!!
April 26, 2022
Being nonviolent is a privilege. Mindfuck Critique of Pacifism. A must read for any concerned citizen. The pacifists, non-violence promoting elite class and their middle class puppies, who are perpetrators and beneficiaries of the reinforced oppressive state structure must not sing the songs of peace & non violence when the guns are pointed the other way and added to that, furthur shift the blame of perpetual violence on the violated oppressed themselves within the power structures. In the end, selectively attributing the success of the struggle to the pacifists peace loving non violent methods alone. The naked truth is, violence has never been defeated by non violence.
An eye for an eye will make the the whole world blind. My foot!
An eye for an eye will make the the whole world blind. My foot!
January 18, 2025
This should be required reading, even though I don't agree with a few of the conclusions necessarily, it's tremendous food for thought and he brings up some accurate points that we as society like to bury.
October 24, 2013
i would highly recommend reading this!
like a lot of [white or passing poc] activists i know, i was raised to view "nonviolence" as the only morally acceptable way forward. i had a sort of naive faith that somehow, enough symbolic acts of non-violent civil disobedience could convince oppressive institutions to change for the better.
back then, i would have been very reluctant to hear what Gelderloos had to say. but he raises the important question: which tactics are effective for causing true, lasting, revolutionary change? he suggests that a diversity of tactics must be available for consideration, including both non-violent and more militant options. it is not effective, he argues, to announce at the outset that you will only use "nonviolence."
he also makes some extremely important points about how when [especially, white] activists advocate the ethos of "nonviolence *only*," this can be disrespectful and/or absurd in the context of the massive violence routinely enacted by the state against communities of color.
like a lot of [white or passing poc] activists i know, i was raised to view "nonviolence" as the only morally acceptable way forward. i had a sort of naive faith that somehow, enough symbolic acts of non-violent civil disobedience could convince oppressive institutions to change for the better.
back then, i would have been very reluctant to hear what Gelderloos had to say. but he raises the important question: which tactics are effective for causing true, lasting, revolutionary change? he suggests that a diversity of tactics must be available for consideration, including both non-violent and more militant options. it is not effective, he argues, to announce at the outset that you will only use "nonviolence."
he also makes some extremely important points about how when [especially, white] activists advocate the ethos of "nonviolence *only*," this can be disrespectful and/or absurd in the context of the massive violence routinely enacted by the state against communities of color.
May 31, 2021
Mostly polemic. While I agree with the general premise, it is lacking in conceptual nuance and its arguments are often weakly structured to the point of irresponsibility. No where is this more true than the chapter on patriarchy. A more effective approach would be to cite strategies and examples... or articulate new frameworks for furthering work... This is just a meandering self-justification with just enough citations and buzzwords to seem otherwise... Almost feels like something put out to be so divisive as to stop people from working together. :/ Better off ignored.
July 27, 2019
This book challenged all the things I thought I knew about organizing. This is a great counterpoint to Alinsky and others, and should be required reading for everyone who thinks activists should not punch Nazis.
June 21, 2024
"We must realistically accept that revolution is a social war, not because we like war, but because we recognize that the status quo is a low intensity war and challenging the state results in an intensification of that warfare."
It is rare that I find a nonfiction book that is moving on such a personal and emotional level that I feel like a different person after reading it. I started not only skeptical of the premise, but quite opposed on a personal level to "violence". The author, however, took me on a difficult and tense journey that left me questioning my values, assumptions and privilege. I will outline and discuss this in more detail as I feel it is the least I can do is write a detailed review that convinces someone to read this work.
Firstly, in terms of definitions, (maybe the only problem I have with the book) violence is only defined at the very end. I understand why the author organized the book the way he did, as it does make for a more compelling polemic, but I still think that I personally would have preferred to start with this fundamental concept more clearly defined. In the last chapter the author states that: "Efforts to actually define violence lead to two outcomes. Either violence is defined literally as something that causes pain or fear, and it cannot be considered an immoral thing because it includes natural activities such as giving birth or eating other living beings to stay alive, or violence is defined with a moral concern for outcomes, in which case inaction or being ineffective in the face of a greater violence must also be considered violent. Either definition excludes nonviolence - the first because violence is inevitable and normal, and the second because nonviolence must be considered violent if it fails to end a system of violence, and also because all privileged people must be considered complicit in violence whether or not they consider themselves pacifists." Thus, from a purely semantic place, the use of a term such as nonviolence is nonsensical. That is why an observation of nonviolent activists showcases the hypocrisy involved. Violence is completely removed from protestors who then get completely rampaged by the violence of the police and counter protestors. This is completely evident, for example, in the recent and ongoing student protests in support of Gaza. The media and the state apparatus does it's best to show the protests as violent and dangerous no matter how nonviolent they actually are. While the police action is seen as pacifying and civil no matter how actually violent and tyrannical it is.
Secondly, the author dedicates the first few chapters to discuss the entrenched systems of hierarchy. These systems such as patriarchy, white supremacy, capitalism, and other oppressive structures are served by the state's monopoly over violence. The state will mobilize all its forces and resources to continue these oppressive systems and maintain the status quo. Because, the government at its core is formed and maintained by the privileged. People of color are the most likely to be imprisoned, marginalized and oppressed. Women are consistently the victims of physical abuse and sexual violence. Thus, when people of privilege promote nonviolence not only are they limiting their arsenal of revolutionary tactics, but they are reinforcing the state's monopoly over violence. This is the crucial bit here, that the state will always choose a giant nonviolent protest over a small group of armed saboteurs. That on its own indicates what tactics pose the greatest threat to the state, what the state considers to be the most dangerous.
Thirdly, on a personal level this attack on the privilege of nonviolence has forced me to question and reformulate my ideals and values. I have always lived with a very pacifist attitude that sees nonviolence as the answer to the problems of the world and to my own confrontations. I saw violence as the tool of angry savages who can't control themselves, whether it's a "mob" or a person who crashed into my car and is resolved to fight rather than talk. The book opened my eyes that my view has been corrupted by my privilege. I am privileged in the sense that I am part of a hierarchy that I know will quite likely protect me (the police, the court, etc.) compared to others down the hierarchical pyramid. The downtrodden and oppressed not only lack this privilege but they are quite often the direct victims of constant state violence. They are much more likely to see the police and the state not as protectors but as a direct enemy who beats them and jails them based on laws that are designed to "keep them in check".
To be very clear the book is not claiming that we have to all take up arms and start a bloody civil war. It is instead simply stating that we must not limit our set of revolutionary tools based on a hypocritical and contradictory principle. We should analyze the situation and choose from our toolbox of tactics the most appropriate tool for the context. Promoters of nonviolence deceive themselves that they are avoiding war and thus protecting the weak and dispossessed. However, the reality is that the low intensity war waged by the state disproportionately targets the poor and the oppressed. We have to choose to fight next to the oppressed as comrades rather than critique them for defending themselves against state violence. The author clarifies his revolutionary views by saying that: "If we identity as anarchists, our job is not to convert everyone else to anarchism, but to use our perspectives and collective experiences to guard against the co-optation efforts of the institutional Left and to provide models for autonomous social relationships and self-organization in cultures where none currently exist." Overall this is a well written and very convincing text that I definitely recommend. I am also excited to read his newer The Failure of Nonviolence, which promises to comment on issues, such as the Arab Spring, that I have lived through.
It is rare that I find a nonfiction book that is moving on such a personal and emotional level that I feel like a different person after reading it. I started not only skeptical of the premise, but quite opposed on a personal level to "violence". The author, however, took me on a difficult and tense journey that left me questioning my values, assumptions and privilege. I will outline and discuss this in more detail as I feel it is the least I can do is write a detailed review that convinces someone to read this work.
Firstly, in terms of definitions, (maybe the only problem I have with the book) violence is only defined at the very end. I understand why the author organized the book the way he did, as it does make for a more compelling polemic, but I still think that I personally would have preferred to start with this fundamental concept more clearly defined. In the last chapter the author states that: "Efforts to actually define violence lead to two outcomes. Either violence is defined literally as something that causes pain or fear, and it cannot be considered an immoral thing because it includes natural activities such as giving birth or eating other living beings to stay alive, or violence is defined with a moral concern for outcomes, in which case inaction or being ineffective in the face of a greater violence must also be considered violent. Either definition excludes nonviolence - the first because violence is inevitable and normal, and the second because nonviolence must be considered violent if it fails to end a system of violence, and also because all privileged people must be considered complicit in violence whether or not they consider themselves pacifists." Thus, from a purely semantic place, the use of a term such as nonviolence is nonsensical. That is why an observation of nonviolent activists showcases the hypocrisy involved. Violence is completely removed from protestors who then get completely rampaged by the violence of the police and counter protestors. This is completely evident, for example, in the recent and ongoing student protests in support of Gaza. The media and the state apparatus does it's best to show the protests as violent and dangerous no matter how nonviolent they actually are. While the police action is seen as pacifying and civil no matter how actually violent and tyrannical it is.
Secondly, the author dedicates the first few chapters to discuss the entrenched systems of hierarchy. These systems such as patriarchy, white supremacy, capitalism, and other oppressive structures are served by the state's monopoly over violence. The state will mobilize all its forces and resources to continue these oppressive systems and maintain the status quo. Because, the government at its core is formed and maintained by the privileged. People of color are the most likely to be imprisoned, marginalized and oppressed. Women are consistently the victims of physical abuse and sexual violence. Thus, when people of privilege promote nonviolence not only are they limiting their arsenal of revolutionary tactics, but they are reinforcing the state's monopoly over violence. This is the crucial bit here, that the state will always choose a giant nonviolent protest over a small group of armed saboteurs. That on its own indicates what tactics pose the greatest threat to the state, what the state considers to be the most dangerous.
Thirdly, on a personal level this attack on the privilege of nonviolence has forced me to question and reformulate my ideals and values. I have always lived with a very pacifist attitude that sees nonviolence as the answer to the problems of the world and to my own confrontations. I saw violence as the tool of angry savages who can't control themselves, whether it's a "mob" or a person who crashed into my car and is resolved to fight rather than talk. The book opened my eyes that my view has been corrupted by my privilege. I am privileged in the sense that I am part of a hierarchy that I know will quite likely protect me (the police, the court, etc.) compared to others down the hierarchical pyramid. The downtrodden and oppressed not only lack this privilege but they are quite often the direct victims of constant state violence. They are much more likely to see the police and the state not as protectors but as a direct enemy who beats them and jails them based on laws that are designed to "keep them in check".
To be very clear the book is not claiming that we have to all take up arms and start a bloody civil war. It is instead simply stating that we must not limit our set of revolutionary tools based on a hypocritical and contradictory principle. We should analyze the situation and choose from our toolbox of tactics the most appropriate tool for the context. Promoters of nonviolence deceive themselves that they are avoiding war and thus protecting the weak and dispossessed. However, the reality is that the low intensity war waged by the state disproportionately targets the poor and the oppressed. We have to choose to fight next to the oppressed as comrades rather than critique them for defending themselves against state violence. The author clarifies his revolutionary views by saying that: "If we identity as anarchists, our job is not to convert everyone else to anarchism, but to use our perspectives and collective experiences to guard against the co-optation efforts of the institutional Left and to provide models for autonomous social relationships and self-organization in cultures where none currently exist." Overall this is a well written and very convincing text that I definitely recommend. I am also excited to read his newer The Failure of Nonviolence, which promises to comment on issues, such as the Arab Spring, that I have lived through.
July 12, 2025
Extremely well-researched text, bursting at the seams with intelligently outlined historical examples and case studies from around the world that should become familiar to anyone developing their ideology. Arguments are cogent and straightforward, if a bit dense.
However, the author often straw-mans, assuming a broad and sometimes contradictory definition of “nonviolence” and critiquing it relentlessly without considering that alternative definitions exist. Further, he takes an efficacy-Olympics approach which is punishingly inflexible - for example, claiming that nuns who sabotage warplanes using mallets have “wasted an opportunity” and cannot be considered true antiwar activists at all(!!!) because they chose not to use bombs to maximize scale of damage. What?! Firstly, he fails to mention that such actions typically cost the government millions and cause concrete, significant delays to military action despite utilising less-than-maximum-violence, reflecting a fallacious pattern wherein he builds his argument by highlighting other activists’ perceived failures without acknowledging what they have actually accomplished outside of the scope of those failures. Secondly, is every action irrelevant, regardless of tangible impact to machines of repression, save those which use the author’s favoured tactics? If so, then I’d love to hear why the author himself spent so much time writing this book when he could have been out bombing government hangars.
Gelderloos himself says at the beginning of the final chapter that “I have made a number of forceful, even vitriolic, arguments against nonviolent activism, and I have not diluted these arguments.” I would call habitually dipping into fallacy a step further than “force,” and I wouldn’t argue that it “dilutes” an argument to acknowledge that there is, on any level whatsoever, efficacy to the argument’s opponent. Rather, I would say that it strengthens it, presuming that your own argument is strong enough to withstand it…
Overall, this book is worth a read. It taught me a lot, and it certainly got me thinking. However, I think it’s important to note its flaws - recognise the extreme bias of the author as you parse through his argumentation, and know that this is above all an opinion piece.
However, the author often straw-mans, assuming a broad and sometimes contradictory definition of “nonviolence” and critiquing it relentlessly without considering that alternative definitions exist. Further, he takes an efficacy-Olympics approach which is punishingly inflexible - for example, claiming that nuns who sabotage warplanes using mallets have “wasted an opportunity” and cannot be considered true antiwar activists at all(!!!) because they chose not to use bombs to maximize scale of damage. What?! Firstly, he fails to mention that such actions typically cost the government millions and cause concrete, significant delays to military action despite utilising less-than-maximum-violence, reflecting a fallacious pattern wherein he builds his argument by highlighting other activists’ perceived failures without acknowledging what they have actually accomplished outside of the scope of those failures. Secondly, is every action irrelevant, regardless of tangible impact to machines of repression, save those which use the author’s favoured tactics? If so, then I’d love to hear why the author himself spent so much time writing this book when he could have been out bombing government hangars.
Gelderloos himself says at the beginning of the final chapter that “I have made a number of forceful, even vitriolic, arguments against nonviolent activism, and I have not diluted these arguments.” I would call habitually dipping into fallacy a step further than “force,” and I wouldn’t argue that it “dilutes” an argument to acknowledge that there is, on any level whatsoever, efficacy to the argument’s opponent. Rather, I would say that it strengthens it, presuming that your own argument is strong enough to withstand it…
Overall, this book is worth a read. It taught me a lot, and it certainly got me thinking. However, I think it’s important to note its flaws - recognise the extreme bias of the author as you parse through his argumentation, and know that this is above all an opinion piece.
December 28, 2020
Daaaamn. This book is good. I’m enlightened. I wish I had read this earlier, in the summer. It would have helped me better articulate my thoughts when discussing the protests— my frustrations with the movement/narrative from media, etc. Overall, I now feel better equipped to respond when someone says “violence is never the answer” or “peaceful protests are the only way to effect change”. Gelderloos is excellent. Really dig his writing style— Informative, straight-forward, digestible. The way he interweaves historical movements, as well as current struggles/revolutions into his argument to showcase how the exclusive nonviolent approach is damaging, ineffective, & one of privilege is beautifully crafted. I think anyone who considers themselves an activist or interested in social movements should read this book, especially liberals who condemn any action that isn’t “peaceful”.
March 26, 2025
even as someone who is endlessly frustrated by pure anarchism, as someone who has liberally policed the actions of people in the past, as a believer in global socialism: this book is essential, and most of its critiques will ring true--whether you are an anarchist or not.
"There is nothing in this world currently deserving of the name peace. Rather, it is a question of whose violence frightens us most, and on whose side we will stand"
"There is nothing in this world currently deserving of the name peace. Rather, it is a question of whose violence frightens us most, and on whose side we will stand"
April 23, 2023
The State is ready to use everything they have against you if you're a real threat to the powers that be, so use all methods at your own disposal to fight for your own liberation! Don't tie your own hands behind your back! Do not shut down others when they use their own methods to free themselves! Do build anti-authoritarian dual power! Do build communities of resistance and mutual aid!
July 28, 2021
quelques rappels intéressants sur la place de la violence dans les mouvements antiracistes et anticoloniaux du XXème siècles, et des éléments par ci par là que j'ai trouvé pertinent.
mais sinon pas vraiment accroché sur l'approche anar/autonome du bouquin, normal
mais sinon pas vraiment accroché sur l'approche anar/autonome du bouquin, normal
December 28, 2024
L’auteur avait un beef de zinzinnnnn à regler avec certaines personnes je crie trop…
Cela dit, tu te perds parfois dans tes idées mon ami, on dirait presque le mec qui dit : « Y A 43 MILLIONS D’UKRAINIENS… ».
Cela dit, tu te perds parfois dans tes idées mon ami, on dirait presque le mec qui dit : « Y A 43 MILLIONS D’UKRAINIENS… ».
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