The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind by Judith Butler (review)

Judith Butler’s The Force of Nonviolence attempts a creative mapping of the forces of nonviolence. With leading thinkers of the world coming up with creative cartographies of violence, Butler’s mapping of nonviolence doesn’t stand as an exercise in altering or undermining such cartographies. While these thinkers work with what stands as a categorical understanding of violence while reconstructing it as a destructive force innate to every being in the world, Butler departs from reiterating such understandings. However, with her mapping, Butler doesn’t seek to problematize the orientation of such understandings either—an orientation that lies in explaining the incurable fascist leaning of humans. Rather, she releases violence from its categorical entrapment only to capture it as a nomadic potential.