Thinking Nonviolence: Struggle and Resistance

At a time when violence seems to have taken over in the variety of its forms, stopping to reflect on nonviolence seems as unpopular a choice as it is necessary. By violence I mean, loosely, any form of physical or moral abuse of others, going so far as to damage their existence and destroy it. The contrast and excess of destructive force are characteristics of violence. Every sphere of human life may contain some aspects of it, namely the lust for domination and forced suppression of the «other» as a function of self-assertion, the outcome of which sometimes results in self-destruction. Indeed, the balance between destructive force and self-assertion is always precarious. In this book, Ramin Jahanbegloo mainly reflects on nonviolence as social and political action but, as we shall see, it becomes achievable only by involving all spheres of human life. Nonviolence is not passive opposition to violence nor indifference, but conscious action through which the dynamics of opposition are changed until they are dissolved. If nonviolence is neither a reaction to violence nor a rhetorical choice, but an expression of a habitus that would have on its side all the justifications for being different, it must stimulate some reflection, first and foremost on ourselves and how we position ourselves in the face of the challenges of the present. With this book, Iranian philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo, in sharing his reflections on nonviolence, prompts us to question how what we know is capable of changing our lives.