Violent and Non-Violent Bodies: Bringing Beauvoir and Bulter in Conversation

Sameema Zahra (University of Queensland)

Abstract: The paper engages with Beauvoir’s claim that violence is the authentic test of one’s subjectivity (SS, 355). The paper begins by briefly discussing Beauvoir’s insistence on the close relationship between the ability to express oneself through violence and one’s subjectivity. I place her views on violence alongside Judith Butler’s views on non-violence. Butler argues that we are already in the ‘force-field of violence’, but she claims that even to counter the injustice of such violence we need to use non-violent means (2020, 25, 47). I find Butler’s claims poignant; however, I believe that Beauvoir’s work shows that just being within the force-field of violence, does not open up violence and non-violence as two viable options. By bringing Beauvoir’s examples of ‘the black man’ in the South of the United States, ‘the French man under German occupation’ and ‘the tomboy’ (SS 354-355), I examine her claim that if violence is excluded from one’s horizon of choices as a viable option, one does not merely ‘picks it up’. Furthermore, if one does not know what it means to choose violence, one cannot choose non-violence either; one rather remains passive.   For the link to the talk, email [email protected]