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stevia333k's review against another edition
5.0
I had been told to read this back when I was in 7th grade, but I didn't because I wasn't ready yet. I learned a lot of this over the past 5 years, but basically when I learned how Descartes used "i think therefore I am" as colonizer apologia combined with ... Basically this book needs to be in ethics classes a lot more often than that white nationalist propaganda called "the tragedy of the commons" which didn't look into how people can work together to avoid that. Thank you Elinor Ostrom for debunking that.
This book helped clarify the racism etc involved in pacifism which is important since it was an axiom I held to for years which sucked because pacifism is wrong.
Looking back besides having to appease racists, i also wanted to avoid the draft & i had done self defense & as I got to age 11 it was becoming more obvious I was getting into suicidal situations & i was in a queerphobic & ableist world, so yeah. The book mentioned that there was this point of no return, but the book also said that people did this with other people & not just themselves. Again, the way my life is set up, the point of no return world just be suicide instead of activism & it's a sad irony.
This book helped clarify the racism etc involved in pacifism which is important since it was an axiom I held to for years which sucked because pacifism is wrong.
Looking back besides having to appease racists, i also wanted to avoid the draft & i had done self defense & as I got to age 11 it was becoming more obvious I was getting into suicidal situations & i was in a queerphobic & ableist world, so yeah. The book mentioned that there was this point of no return, but the book also said that people did this with other people & not just themselves. Again, the way my life is set up, the point of no return world just be suicide instead of activism & it's a sad irony.
kserra's review
3.0
Wow, I have all of the mixed feelings about this book.
I think it's an interesting premise, and some parts of this book are fascinating and well-argued. (Why Nonviolence is Racist, in particular.) The most convincing part is that all movements require a variety of tactics in order to succeed, and more radical violent groups often enable the success of more mainstream ideologies by forcing the state to deal with them. That's totally fair, and seems inarguably correct.
However, I think Gelderloos often falls into the trap of arguing against a straw-person (or group of straw people), it fails to define what it means by nonviolence (a problem), and that it over-generalizes from the author's personal experiences. It also assumes a set of shared aims (without explicitly stating them) across an amazing number of movements and people, which might explain why it may fail to be convincing to anyone who doesn't already agree with the author.
I think it's an interesting premise, and some parts of this book are fascinating and well-argued. (Why Nonviolence is Racist, in particular.) The most convincing part is that all movements require a variety of tactics in order to succeed, and more radical violent groups often enable the success of more mainstream ideologies by forcing the state to deal with them. That's totally fair, and seems inarguably correct.
However, I think Gelderloos often falls into the trap of arguing against a straw-person (or group of straw people), it fails to define what it means by nonviolence (a problem), and that it over-generalizes from the author's personal experiences. It also assumes a set of shared aims (without explicitly stating them) across an amazing number of movements and people, which might explain why it may fail to be convincing to anyone who doesn't already agree with the author.
marianacastrop's review
4.0
"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 !!!!!