When Bodies Speak Differently: Putting Judith Butler in Conversation with Mahatma Gandhi on Nonviolent Resistance

Louise Du Toit,Jana Vosloo

doi:10.3390/rel12080627

Abstract

This article puts political philosopher Judith Butler in conversation with Gandhi, on the topic of nonviolent resistance. More particularly, we compare them on a systematic philosophical level. Although we focus on Gandhi’s more activist side, by delving into the ontological presuppositions that Butler and Gandhi share, we can do some justice to how his activism is firmly rooted in a faith-based understanding of the world. We discuss four themes in each of which they complement each other: namely, the ontological roots of the nonviolent imperative; their rejection of an instrumental view of violence; nonviolent resistance seen as communicative action; and nonviolence viewed as a way of life. This discussion shows that while they have very different starting points and vocabularies, and while some tensions remain, there is much scope for cooperation, solidarity and alliance between religious and nonreligious practitioners of nonviolent resistance.

Highlights

With their1 2020 book, The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind, feminist political philosopher Judith Butler joins a long tradition of nonviolent resistance that includes proponents such as Leo Tolstoy, Albert Einstein, Henry David Thoreau, Te Whiti o Rongomai III, Martin Luther King Junior, Václav Havel, Alice Paul, Rosa Parks, and others, noticeably Mahatma Gandhi
The need to reimagine and practice nonviolent resistance continues as violent institutions and systems prevail within the global and South African contexts, and as people attempt to oppose this violence through violence of their own
In considering the option of nonviolent resistance, we should be encouraged and empowered by the Guidelines for the Right of Peaceful Assembly24 adopted by the United Nations in July 2020 that strongly reinforce the right to nonviolent assembly and protest as an integral aspect of promoting and strengthening democracy

Summary

Introduction

With their1 2020 book, The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind, feminist political philosopher Judith Butler joins a long tradition of nonviolent resistance that includes proponents such as Leo Tolstoy, Albert Einstein, Henry David Thoreau, Te Whiti o Rongomai III, Martin Luther King Junior, Václav Havel, Alice Paul, Rosa Parks, and others, noticeably Mahatma Gandhi. Put, where heterosexism, patriarchy and racism are dominant norms embedded in discourse and institutions, and in practices of recognition and knowledge production, and in self-understandings, there, bodies marked as gender nonconforming, female and/or black, are likely to struggle to appear as “proper” subjects and citizens, both to themselves and to others This is precisely the kind of situation where Butler would evoke the force of nonviolent resistance, which is exerted where and when “a social and political practice [is] undertaken in concert, culminating in a form of resistance to systemic forms of destruction coupled with a commitment to world building that honours global interdependency . This critical view of violence, which shares many elements with that of Butler, is discussed

Their Rejection of the Instrumental View of Violence

Nonviolent Resistance Seen as Communicative Action

Nonviolence Viewed as a Way of Life

Concluding Remarks