Collective resistance has often taken a brutal turn, from the uprisings of nineteenth-century abolitionists, to the Los Angeles Watts Rebellion of 1965, to recent pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. In cases like these, is violence defensible?
Today’s reading list considers different perspectives on this question, from a political scientist who thinks that “uncivil disobedience” is crucial to political success, to a former “terrorist” who thinks Antifa are harming their own cause.
And what happens when nation-states appropriate the language of necessary violence? A provocative personal essay from philosopher and former IDF crew commander Oded Na’aman picks apart the claims made by Israelis that “we never choose violence, violence chooses us.”
—Rosie Gillies
Long before the Civil War, black abolitionists shared the consensus that violence would be necessary to end slavery. Unlike their white peers, their arguments were about when and how to use political violence, not if.
Images of police violence against African Americans have a radical heritage.
