Jeffers’ Axe: The Instability of Nonviolence

Authors

Brian Glaser, Chapman UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-10-2018

Abstract

This article begins by situating Jessica Benjamin’s idea of the “moral third” in relation to some discourses of ethical nonviolence. It then offers a discussion of Robinson Jeffers’ narrative poem “The Inhumanist” that shows the insightfulness of Benjamin’s concept and demonstrates the worth of poetry in fostering the forms of moral involvement in nonviolence that follow from the experience of the moral third. Finally, it puts Jeffers’ and Benjamin’s ideas about nonviolence into conversation with Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature, highlighting the limitations with understanding reason and altruism as the primary forces against state violence.

Comments

This article was originally published in Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, volume 24, in 2018. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41282-018-0108-x

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Recommended Citation

Glaser, Brian. "Jeffers’ Axe: The Instability of Nonviolence.: Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, vol. 24, 2018, pp. 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41282-018-0108-x

Peer Reviewed

1

Copyright

Springer